Composer and pianist fled Cuba in 1967 and settled in New York. Despite playing a major role in the Black arts scene of the 1960s and '70s (she was a co-founder and music director of the Dance Theater of Harlem), her music is somewhat underappreciated, and this collection of her keyboard works by is quite valuable. The music stretches from 's student days in Cuba to the 2010s in , a kind of Stravinskian treatment of 's "Good Thing Going" (from the musical ). The works are tied to specific experiences and acquaintances of 's; this includes the piece, for she recalls buying cheap seats for Broadway musicals as a young woman. was composed for pianist , who, in 2003, gave the first performance of 's music in Cuba for more than 40 years. It is a good place to start with her works, as Cuban rhythms force their way joyfully into modern tonality and a bit of Impressionist texture. The proportion of Cuban elements perhaps drops a bit in the later stages of 's career, but really, her voice is quite individual and consistent from the beginnings represented in a piece like . 's performances are crisp and authoritative, and producer , working at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York, garnered a Producer of the Year Grammy nomination in 2022 in part for this release. Essential for students of both Black and Latin American classical music, this album offers some unjustifiably forgotten music for any listener. ~ James Manheim