The love affair between Dessa and the Minnesota Orchestra will blossom even further next spring, as they announced plans to record an album together based off a pair of concerts on March 26 and 28.
Billed as "the Minnesota Orchestra's first Doomtree release" – surely no one saw this one coming from the underground hip-hop label/crew – the live recording will feature some of the older staples that Dessa has already reworked with the orchestra in her three previous outings with them. It will also reportedly feature two or three new songs that the rapper and her collaborators/producers Lazerbeak and Andy Thompson are creating specifically for the occasion. Look for the album's release by year's end.
"Following Dessa's previous performances with the Minnesota Orchestra, social media has blown up with the question 'when can you make a recording?'—and now we can answer 'later this year,'" Grant Meachum, the Orchestra's director of Live at Orchestra Hall, said in a press release for the shows.
Dessa and Sarah Hicks, Live at Orchestra Hall's principal conductor, have been teasing to the announcement in recent days with rather un-orchestra-like social-media postings. Coming off a typically busy year that also saw the national publication of her memoir, "My Own Devices," as well an international tour for her latest album, "Chime," Dessa hyped her prior collaborations with MN Orch as "the most memorable performances of my life."
"I'm proud of the work we've done together, excited to take the stage with Sarah and the orchestra again, and am still sort of stunned we get to cut a record together," she said in the announcement.
Tickets go on sale at noon Monday for $31-$125 via minnesotaorchestra.org, Orchestra Hall's box office (open Monday-Friday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.) or by calling 612-371-5656 or 800-292-4141.
