University of York Music Press

Steve Smith reviewed the première in the New York Times: “From a lapping, splashing introduction, the music …. played by a 10-member ensemble that included an ear-tickling mix of cimbalom, harp and marimba …. rippled, surged and jolted ceaselessly around Mr. Arditti’s flashing exertions. Time stood still repeatedly during haunting interludes that paid homage to another composer, Jonathan Harvey.”

Páramo de voces (Voices of a wasteland) (2006), performed by Alberto Rosado, is a dialogue between piano and recorded sound, the latter extending the piano’s sonorities or providing invitations in the form of auras or images inspired in the stories of the Mexican writer Juan Rulfo.

Intermezzo malinconico (2013), for bass clarinet, recorded by Adrian Sandi, begins with percussive attacks in a low register, a ‘noisy breathy staccato effect’ created by placing the tongue between the lips whilst playing. Notes rise or fall by eighth or quarter tones; the clarinetist plays dissonant chords by using multiphonics and even makes a ‘kiss type sound, produced by explosively opening the lips which are sucking firmly on the mouth piece’.

The two other chamber works on the CD, Homenaje a Remedios Varo (1995-96) for mixed sextet (scored for the instrumentation of Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire plus percussion) and Recuerdos del Porvenir (2006) for mixed octet and based on the cantus firmus In nomine, are performed by Ensemble Recherche.

The liner notes are written by Paul Griffiths and the cover photo taken by the Hasselblad award winning Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide.

Mode CD 292 is available now direct from Mode Records: http://www.moderecords.com/order.html and from Amazon, on CD or as a download.

Miles away

The world premiere of Paredes’ new trumpet concerto Miles away, commissioned by Ensemble Contrechamps, will take place on:

• Monday 23d May 2016, 20:00, in Alhambra, Rue de la Rôtisserie, 10, Geneva
• Tuesday 24th May, 20:00, at the Tonhalle in Zurich

The concert, which will be conducted by Michael Wendeberg, is a portrait of the most recent Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American music, represented in the works of four different composers that have the same ideal of integrity.

The music of Hilda Paredes is immediately marked by the intensity of the relationship between time, dramatic force and philosophical approach.

Miles away was written for the star Venezuelan trumpet player Pacho Flores, who was trained in el Sistema as part of the Simon Bolivar orchestra.

The structure and dramatic discourse of Miles away displays an array of instrumental extended techniques as well as the virtuoso abilities of the extraordinary musicians of Contrechamps and the expressive virtuosity of Flores.

The title makes reference to the late Miles Davis. The middle section of the piece features references to his expressive solos, entwined with new melodic material as a tribute to his legacy.

For more information about this concert, please visit: www.contrechamps.ch/1516-concert-dirige-7