Poema 1. Ad Astra is the first in a series of recordings by Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra in which Music Director Alexander Shelley asked Canadian composers to craft compositions that respond to masterpieces by German composer Richard Strauss (1864–1949). Kelly-Marie Murphy responds to Don Juan and Kevin Lau to Death and Transfiguration. This latest cycle of recordings, a dialogue between the past and our modern era, strikes a perfect balance between the exhilaration of the new and the charm of the timeless classic.