PARALLEL WORLDS

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

 

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Several compositions by Czech composer Jan Jirasek are featured in Parallel Worlds, a just released new entry in the catalogue of the eclectically inventive Navona Records. The album (nv6101) includes compositions for choral ensemble that feature the Jitro Czech Girls Choir.

Based on the Bohemian town of Hradec Králové in the Czech Republic, the all girls, thirty-strong, touring choir, delivers under the direction of Jiri Skopal a crystalline sound in Jirasek’s Missa Propria, then transitions to an earthier sound appropriate to the worldly Latin poetry of Si, Vis Amari, Ama, and finally shifts once more to a supple sound suitable to the a capella intricacies of Mondi Paralleli. Throughout, the Jitro singers are stunningly accurate in pitch and malleable in their technical ability. Beyond that, they and their maestro are utterly musical.

The album concludes with the humorous Lavvriksnipxcygrynch (King Lavra), an inventive narrative ballad for choir and percussion featuring pianist Michal Chrobák,  percussionist, Pavel Plašil, and the composer himself on the scissors that finally revealed that the hapless King of the tale had donkey’s ears.

Jirasek’s largely tonal writing evidences influences as disparate as Catholic Church music and Bohemian folk song, both these and others homogenously unified by Jirasek’s own sensibility in this impressive album much worthy of the attention who loves the human voice treated imaginatively by a resourceful composer.

Parallel Worlds is available directly from http://www.navonarecords.com

Rafael de Acha

 

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”