Recorded live at Walt Disney Concert Hall in May 2019, conducted by LA Phil Conductor Laureate Essa-Pekka Salonen with solo vocalist Nora Fischer, The Only One was influenced by two artistic discoveries made by composer Louis Andriessen.

The first discovery was a collection of poems by the Flemish poet Delphine Lecompte from The Animals Inside Me. “These witty, intelligent, experimental, and sometimes scabrous poems immediately fascinated me,” Andriessen says. “My focus turned to faraway America, with its great tradition of song writing.”

His second discovery was the work of Nora Fischer, an Amsterdam-based singer known for developing dynamic creative projects that fuse classical and pop music. “The depth of her versatility has strongly influenced the musical language of the piece,” Andriessen says, further explaining that “the piece flirts a bit with certain kinds of pop songs and light music, and starts out with a beautiful song.”

• Los Angeles Philharmonic
• Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor
• Nora Fischer, soprano