"Blue Electra," by Anne Akiko Meyers, out now

Today, Anne Akiko Meyers — one of the world’s most esteemed violinists, and a muse and champion of today’s most important composers — releases her latest album on Naxos, Blue Electra, featuring the violin concerto of the same title by Michael Daugherty. The piece was commissioned by and written for Meyers, who is joined on the album, her 43rd, by the Albany Symphony under conductor David Alan Miller.

Blue Electra, the album's longest work, is a dramatic violin concerto inspired by the extraordinary life and enigmatic disappearance of Amelia Earhart (1898–1937), the pioneering aviator who, in 1928, became the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic. A vivid, captivating tribute to the accomplishments and history of Earhart, Blue Electra gets its world-premiere recording. Earhart vanished without a trace in 1937 while flying her “Electra” airplane over the Pacific Ocean. Celebrated worldwide as “Queen of the Air,” she also advocated for women’s rights, taught aviation at Purdue University, and wrote three books and poems.

The violin concerto "is very lyrically beautiful," Meyers told Laurie Niles in her interview with violinst.com. "I really love the way that Michael tells a story - there is always a narrative throughout his music. Blue Electra is melodious and incredibly accessible. He makes it easy for me to share the story. There's everything from super-high notes to swooping figures. There are bellies of notes where you feel like you're flying on the fingerboard, and there are harmonics, where you feel like you're dropping out of the sky."

Every time I play Blue Electra I am reminded of her bravery and her courage. It's empowering, to share this beautiful story about how she felt in the sky - the feeling of being free, being like a hawk and looking down at the Earth and seeing life go by. Or looking from the ground and seeing the clouds, and imagining herself floating in those clouds.

All of these composers amaze me - they have this imagination that pushes me to new creative places that I wouldn't have ever dreamed of going on my own. I am so inspired by their musical minds and how they can create something like musical painting, or even a poem, and make that come alive through music. It's eternal, what can be said through music.

Critic David Hurwitz also reviewed the album. Twice! “Written for soloist Anne Akiko Meyers, it would be difficult to imagine a finer performance: soulful and virtuosic by turns,” he writes for Classics Today.

And he also recorded a video interview for his YouTube channel, calling Anne a "wonderful violinist still at the top of her game ... [who] plays magnificently."

Blue Electra is available on all streaming platforms.