Toshio Hosokawa is one of Japan’s most eminent living composers. The first volume in this series devoted to his orchestral works [8.573239] explores the idea of the blossoming lotus – “music as plant-like development and growth” – and continues here with Blossoming II for chamber orchestra. Woven Dreams traces the journey from womb to birth by employing techniques drawn from Gagaku, the ancient Japanese court music. Of Circulating Ocean the composer writes: “I am attempting to express in sound the flow and change of water... The ocean is for me the birthplace of life, a being possessed of infinite depth and expanse.”