“Music has always had a transportive power for me,” the US conductor Karina Canellakis tells Apple Music Classical. “It can give me the sensation of flying over vast expanses of deep-blue ocean, or convey the loneliness of being mesmerised by a sheen of countless stars in the night sky. The music I selected here embodies this profound feeling of connection to the wilderness, and expresses an awe for the grandeur and majesty of our planet.” The opening movement of Bartók’s Four Orchestral Pieces, conducted by Canellakis herself, well illustrates this: “Bartók creates a very ethereal atmosphere,” she explains, “much like an enchanted forest with rays of sun peering down through the trees, with rough night winds created by unique textures and combinations of instruments; and there’s spellbinding use of the harp, rolling arpeggios up and down like sunlight playing on the surface of a forest stream.” Canellakis finds a similar quality in Caroline Shaw’s and the swallow: “I’m struck by the immense beauty of Caroline’s writing for a cappella choir,” she says, “the soothing ebb and flow of this group of singers who become one entity, moving like a great body of water.” Meanwhile, the “Adagio” of Mahler’s 10th and final symphony conveys for Canellakis how a creative artist responds to the miracle of existence: “There is no denying the essence of this movement: epic, life-affirming, cutting straight to the core of what it means to have one precious life on this Earth.”