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Anne Akiko Meyers Serenade: The Love Album is an exploration of love in all its dimensions, featuring Leonard Bernstein s Serenade and ten world premieres from seven living composer-arrangers. The Serenade is based on a reading of Plato s Symposium, in which seven ancient Greek philosophers debate their thoughts about love at a raucous dinner party. Meyers thought it fitting to pair Serenade with newly commissioned love-inspired music from seven living arrangers. Bernstein s sweeping, five-movement concert piece, written for violin, strings, harp, and percussion was premiered by Isaac Stern in Venice, Italy, on September 12, 1954, with the composer conducting. Serenade is Bernstein s most direct piece about love, his examination of his own romantic life and his reaction to what s discussed in Symposium.