This disc received the 1997 Grammy award for "Best Producer of the Year, Classical" (Steven Epstein). Selections recorded April 8-9, 1997 at Tsuen Wan Town Hall in Hong Kong, April 1-2, 1997 at Hubei Provincial Museum in Wuhan, China and May 6-8, 1997 at Mechanics Hall in Worcester, Massachusetts. REVIEWS: American Record Guide (11-12/97, pp.209-10) - "...`Symphony 1997' decks itself out in some grand symbols of Chinese civilization: poetry of Li Po, the playing of one of the greatest musicians ever to have touched a cello, ideas from the `Yi-Ching,' the sound of Hong Kong children, and the awe-inspiring ring of the 2400-year-old Bianzhong bells. It all makes a grand and happy sound, but there seems a purposeful evasion to it all--a convenient, backward-focussed ambiguity....`Symphony 1997' is pleasant and vivid enough if also so incoherent (so `unsymphonic') as to make it sound like a soundtrack to a movie or some kind of background music..."
