Korean composer Jihye Lee was studying at Boston’s Berklee College of Music when a news story from the coast of South Korea captured worldwide attention—the April 2014 sinking of a ferry with the loss of 300 lives. The disaster inspired her to compose April, a six-song suite for jazz orchestra. Following in the tradition of Gunther Schuller, Lee recorded April with a 20-piece ensemble, deploying the resources of strings and percussion, woodwinds and brass to tell the story sonically with requisite notes of terror and urgency.
