Classically trained flautist and composer Siobhan Lamb clearly enjoys mixing her sources and inspirations, as is demonstrated in these two enterprising releases, both conducted by Lamb herself and featuring her husband, Gerard Presencer, on trumpet. In the first, Meditations, commissioned in 2006 by the Marsden International Jazz Festival, the five movements are woven around the themes of love, loss, hope, joy and peace and bring together string quartet, a vocal group trained in medieval chant, a harpist and – on the third part, ‘My Bonnie’ – a children's choir. The latter proves repetitive and mildly irritating, but elsewhere the blending of different traditions, and the introduction of the spirit of improvisation into a classical setting, works beautifully. ‘My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose’ – based on the Burns poem – has real lyrical charm and a hint of folky ecstasy about it, as well as some wonderfully luminous passages courtesy of Presencer. ‘Hope’, meanwhile, a setting of the famous lines by Emily Dickinson, works itself into a fine hypnotic-minimalist froth before drawing to a majestic conclusion.

Lamb's father was a big band performer so it's perhaps unsurprising that she was tempted to experiment with bringing together a classical choir and a large jazz ensemble in her 2010 piece The Nightingale and the Rose, based on the Oscar Wilde story of the same name and originally commissioned by the WDR Big Band and Symphonic Choir in Germany. It's performed here by the Danish Radio Big Band and Choir, with Presencer again adding some solo trumpet sparkle. There's no real attempt to get the singers to jazz things up, or the big band to take the swing out of their playing – this is a clash of civilisations-type approach to Third Stream composition. The most striking thing is how satisfying the results are dramatically: there's real coherence and direction in both the musical and verbal development. Guitarist Per Gade achieves maximum intensity in what Lamb in her notes calls his “crazy death solo” in the third movement.