Chicago Folklore Ensemble is proud to announce the release of their latest album Praner Alap: Meeting of Hearts on Innova Recordings. A breathtaking artistic collaboration, the album features innovative musical arrangements of songs from the Nobel Prize-winning poetry collection Gitanjali (Song Offerings) by Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore.

With soaring vocals by Subhajit Sengupta and Swarnali Banerjee intertwined with sweeping strings, accordion, raga-based improvisations, and a myriad of instruments, Praner Alap brings new emotional intensity to Tagore's melodies and lyrics. The digital album is complemented by a beautiful artbook featuring paintings inspired by each song and newly translated lyrics.

"Praner Alap is the culmination of a beautiful collaboration between dear friends from around the world who joined their diverse artistic backgrounds to explore the depth of Tagore's songs," said Lucia Thomas of Chicago Folklore Ensemble. "We hope this album will introduce listeners to the incredible power of Tagore's words and melodies."

Published in 1910, Gitanjali was Tagore's groundbreaking collection of Bengali poetry that largely contained lyrics of songs he had composed. Tagore’s English translation of Gitanjali gained popularity in the West and won him a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913, but the melodies of the songs remained unknown to Western audiences. Praner Alap brings these musical works to life for contemporary listeners through innovative cross-cultural arrangements.

The album is the latest release from Chicago Folklore Ensemble, a group established in 2015 to celebrate immigrant communities through interdisciplinary performances interweaving music and storytelling. Their previous works include the album and oral history collection The World in Chicago and the performance series Where Rivers Meet: Songs and Stories from Masters of Arabic Music.