Composers have always been fascinated by the sea, and, if you’re curious, Spotify offers a playlist of 50 sea-inspired classical works from composers ranging from Mendelssohn to Debussy to Takemitsu.

On today’s date in 2012, conductor Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony premiered a new sea-inspired work by the London-born composer Anna Clyne, who was then the orchestra’s composer-in-residence. Clyne’s piece is titled “Night Ferry,” and was, as she described, "music of voyages, from stormy darkness to enchanted worlds. It is music of the conjurer and setter of tides, the guide through the ungovernable and dangerous.”

The Chicago Symphony took Anna Clyne’s “Night Ferry” on tour that year, with Pacific Coast stops in San Francisco and San Diego, and also, perhaps for thematic contrast, to Palm Desert, California, for good measure.

Composer Anna Clyne is bit of a traveler herself. She studied music formally at at the University of Edinburgh, then at the Manhattan School of Music, and in addition to being named composer-in-residence in Chicago, she has held similar positions with Orchestre National d'Île-de-France, the Baltimore Symphony, the Berkeley Symphony, and coming full circle, with the Edinburgh-based Scottish Chamber Orchestra.