Sting on his new album Symphonicities:

“There’s a bit of cabaret, it’s a little bit middle of the road, but I’m trying to create something new in this interface between pop and symphonic music. I think these songs have enough harmonic movement in them to warrant a symphony orchestra playing them. I want them to sound like a rhythmic unit as opposed to aural wallpaper for somebody’s vanity. It’s sonically rich: you can do almost anything with an orchestra. I don’t know where it’s going, but that’s something I love. The journey itself is the reward.”

Rob Mathes, musical director for the project added this bit from his blog:

Regarding the critics, I hope some listen all the way through to hear the blistering “She’s Too Good For Me” which I have described as Stravinsky writing a Roadhouse blues, to hear “Pirate’s” and “Black Seam”, the moody and brooding “Burn For You”, a Sting composition from his early 20′s. There is enough beautiful stuff in there to raise the eyebrows of even ferocious naysayers. In the end you just have to do the best you can and let the work speak for itself.

The album is Sting at his best, musically rich, unpredictable and genuinely fresh. And as he noted at the interview: “The journey itself is the reward.”