Anne Akiko Meyers New Album “Blue Electra”

Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers' new album “Blue Electra,” released by Naxos, features works by GRAMMY winning composer Michael Daugherty

The GRAMMY® Award-winning artist Anne Akiko Meyers has released her latest album on Naxos, Blue Electra, which highlights a violin concerto inspired by aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart.

In addition to the concerto, the album features works by GRAMMY® Award-winning composer Michael Daugherty, including  ”Last Dance at the Surf”  and "To the New World.” The album was recorded in 2023 at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall with the Albany Symphony, conducted by David Alan Miller.

To purchase and listen to the album, click here.

Inspired by the life and poetry of Amelia Earhart, Daugherty's Blue Electra (2022) is a violin concerto in four movements, each portraying a pivotal moment in Earhart’s journey as the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean. Two movements set her poetry to music, while the others evoke key events — her triumph in Paris following her solo transatlantic flight and her tragic final attempt to circle the globe.

Anne Akiko Meyers, the concerto’s dedicatee, describes the ending as “crushing and incredibly haunting.” She recalls asking Daugherty about its final bars, to which he replied that the idea simply “presented itself” to him. It was premiered by Meyers and the National Symphony Orchestra under Gianandrea Noseda at the Kennedy Center in 2022.

"Last Dance at the Surf” (2021) is a one-movement dance symphony commemorating the final concert of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, before their tragic plane crash in 1959.

"To the New World” (2019) honors the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Scored for orchestra and solo euphonium (Neil Armstrong’s college instrument), it incorporates melodies from Dvořák’s New World Symphony, a recording Armstrong took to the Moon. Daugherty also includes an ethereal amplified soprano obbligato to mimic the theremin, one of Armstrong’s favorite instruments.

Anne Akiko Meyers recently won a GRAMMY® for her live recording of Arturo Márquez’s Fandango with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She has collaborated with many of today's composers including Mason Bates, John Corigliano, Philip Glass, and has appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Evening At Pops with John Williams and CBS Sunday Morning, among many others.

Meyers. attended the Colburn School of Performing Arts and The Juilliard School, working closely with Dorothy DeLay. She has received the Avery Fisher Career Grant and an Honorary Doctorate from the Colburn School and serves on the board of trustees of The Juilliard School. She performs on the 1741 “Vieuxtemps” Guarneri “del Gesù.” Anne Akiko Meyers is a Larsen Artists. She pairs her 1741 "Vieuxtemps" Guarneri del Gesù with the Larsen Strings Il Cannone Gold D string and the Il Cannone Soloist strings.