Spanish Jews have called their former homeland in the Iberian peninsula Sepharad and themselves Sephardim, and Joaquin Rodrigo chose to name one of his compositionsDos pequeñas fantasias (Two Little Fantasies) finding inspiration in Sephardic music.
¡Qué buen caminito! (What a nice little road) and Ecos de Sefarad (Echoes of Sepharad) evidence much of what is multi-cultural and what enriches Spanish music.
Elsewhere in the delightful Naxos albumJoaquín Rodrigo Guitar Music, Vol. 3 (8.574004) the listener is treated to the quintessential Rodrigo sound in Elogio de la guitarra, Tríptico, Dos preludios, Sonata a la española, and El álbum de Cecilia.
Elegantly lyrical, hauntingly evocative, Romantic to its core, Rodrigo’s music is redolent of an intensely atmospheric Spain, and is here nobly played with intense musicality by the gifted Turkish-American guitarist Celil Refik Kaya.
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.”
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