Maurice Sendak Music is a collaboration with the Relâche Ensemble. For Relâche's 25th anniversary season, the ensemble has commissioned a large work from Minimum Security in collaboration with WHYY Radio and the Rosenbach Library, which houses the archive of renowned author and illustrator Maurice Sendak.

Best known for his children’s books, Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen, Maurice Sendak has spent the past fifty years bringing to life a world of fantasy and imagination. His unique vision is loved around the globe by both young and old. Beyond his award-winning work as a writer and illustrator of children’s books, Sendak has produced both operas and ballets for television and the stage.

An octect of winds, strings and percussion, the Relâche Ensemble has, for a quarter century, defined its image and aesthetic around the "downtown" new music repertoire. This repertoire maintains a close connection to the high art of classical composition and performance, but also embraces the breadth of contemporary music culture, incorporating aspects of everything from jazz, rock, popular and world-music to electronic and avant garde idioms. Relâche's players are classically trained, but each is proficient in ethnic, jazz, rock and popular music, making Relâche one of the most stylistically flexible groups on the East Coast. [Visit Relâche's website]

This project has been made possible through generous funding by Relâche and The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Special thanks for this project goes to:
   The authors and illustrators Maurice Sendak and Tony Kushner,
   Performing ensemble Relâche and its past & present artistic directors Thaddeus Squire and Christopher McGlumphy,
   Collaborating partners The Rosenbach Museum and Library (esp. Bill Adair, Director of Education) and WHYY Radio (esp. Ken Finkel, Executive Director of Arts and Culture), and
   Generous funder The Philadelphia Music Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts