New York's Symphony Space has hosted an annual free music marathon, Wall to Wall, since 1978. This year it has actually hosted two such events the second of which, Wall to Wall Sonidos, is a part of the major festival Si Cuba! Between 11 AM and 12 AM over 200 performers performed over 60 works related to Latin America that ranged from the popular to advanced modernist music and from the sixteenth century to the present.
Wall to Wall always brings in the best of the best, whatever its focus. The roster of performers was a veritable who's who. It was especially wonderful to get to hear Sonia Rubinsky, who has performed and recorded all of Heitor Villa-Lobos' piano music, play a number of his works both as soloist and in an interesting "remix" with electronica group XPLAU.
Something that was particularly interesting to me was the opportunity to hear the work Paramo by Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon a second time. I had heard it at the Americas Society earlier in the year performed by the New York New Music Ensemble. This time a contemporary music ensemble, Eastman Broadband, performed the work. Because the performance space at Symphony Space is much larger than the elegant but small performance space at Americas Society, the ensemble could spread out much more and the sound travel over a wider area. So, rather than the very concentrated, dense sound of the Americas Society performance, the sound here was much more open and airy, and individual strands of musical lines could be heard more clearly. I would say that both performances had lots to recommend them as this is a very well-written work with lots of color and interesting details. It was just good to hear it again in a different venue.
Although Latin elements were pretty obvious in most of the works, for those works composed in a more international and modernist style such elements tended to be more discreet or submerged. Such is the case with Tania Leon's Cuarteto No. 2. which was given its world premiere by the Harlem Quartet. In her somewhat elusive notes on the work, Ms. Leon comments that the work shows the influence of the Son Cubano (her native country of Cuba). Latin rhythms and melodic lines emerged and recessed throughout the three-movement work each movement of which has a curious title ("Soy"-- "I am"; "De vez en quando"--"once in awhile"; and "Son retazos"--"they are fragments").
The final work of the event was to have been one composed by Latin Jazz master Arturo O'Farrill but, as the time was getting very late and the work required the services of the LaGuardia High School Senior Chorus, it was performed earlier. This was certainly good for me as I was getting a little weary and had a long subway ride ahead of me. The work A Still Small Voice was composed for chorus (specifically the LaGuardia Chorus) and the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra. Three of the four movements are based on religious or philosophical texts dealing with the idea of the conscience, "a voice inside us that knows right from wrong." Mr. O'Farrill certain packs a lot into this work and some might say that it is overwritten. However, his desire is to express very passionately his "absolute horror at the socio-economic terrorism of the world today." Indeed, there were times in the performance, especially in the instrumental third movement where the music threatened to careen out of control and at other times where the orchestra greatly overpowered the chorus. This was probably intentional on Mr. O'Farrill's part as his passion about both the chaos the world seems to be experiencing now requires us to step back and listen. The same message is fundamental to Invisible Cities where Marco Polo "reveals to the Khan his only possible hope: 'Kublai Khan, seek and find who and what in the midst of the inferno is not inferno. Make them endure, Give them space.'" The work has a structural arc that leaves one breathless at the end.
Wall to Wall Sonidos was a veritable one-day seminar in Latin American music that had something to offer for everyone. What an opportunity for the audience!
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