Following ballet compositions and works for piano and orchestra, cpo is now presenting to listeners wind concertos by the musical cosmopolitan Alexandre Tansman. This production focuses on concertante works for woodwinds and orchestra composed by the Polish emigrant Tansman during the 1950s and 1960s. This music, thoroughly retrospective but in no way antiquated, mixes the profound layers of origins and manifold influences to which the composer was exposed during his years in Paris and the United States. Consequently, the results of these multifaceted layered structures so well worth hearing are situated in a world between Igor Stravinsky, the members of the Groupe des Six, and the music of the New World, which manifests itself not least in the form of jazz rhythms and styles. For half a century, the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra has been Malta's leading musical ensemble. The orchestra was founded in April 1868, when musicians from the defunct "C-in-C" orchestra of the Malta-based British Mediterranean Fleet regrouped as the Manoel Theatre Orchestra. It continued to serve as the theatre's resident orchestra until September 1997, when it became an independent orchestra, taking up the name National Orchestra of Malta in the process. The ensemble assumed it's present name in 2008, when it was expanded into a full-size symphony orchestra.