SONIDOS CUBANOS

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Neuma Records has been releasing dozens of albums by composers and performers from many corners of the world for the last three decades.

Next up is Sonidos Cubanos 2 – second in a Latin Grammy-nominated series – an album that focuses on the music of five composers who are Cuban-born or of Cuban parentage.

Composed by Flores Chaviano and played by the Orquesta de Cámara de Siero, led by Manuel Paz, with Héctor Cuello as soloist on the Spanish gaita, NiFe is a tribute to the victims of a 1995 mining accident in Spain that depicts in clamorous dissonances the chaotic events of a national tragedy and their aftermath.

Ivette Herryman Rodríguez’ Memorial is a lyrical solo setting of Christina Rossetti’s poem, “When I am dead, my dearest” sung here by the crystal-clear soprano Lindsay Kesselman, with the accomplished accompaniment of pianist Oscar Micaelsson and cellist Norbert Lewandowski.

A virtual opera set in a post-USA dystopia, Sabrina Peña’s Young Libertaria depicts a young woman’s struggles as she leads a children’s army against evil corporate scientists, while Eduardo Morales-Caso ‘s Evolving Spheres employs the participation of Lorenzo Iosco and Duncan Gifford teaming up to play an inventive fantasy for bass clarinet and piano.

Performed by the superb ensemble Lontano, Odaline de la Martinez’ Litanies vividly recalls some of the composer’s childhood memories of growing up in Cuba.

Jagged, slicing, atonal asperity is contrasted to moments of tonality, as if the troubling aspects of one’s past struggled within one’s recollections with whatever one can hold on to for comfort.

After an opening section in which an ostinato bass line lingers on ominously, a lively syncopated passage for the woodwinds and the strings moves in to evoke Cuban dance rhythms. A hint of lyricism is heard when a cello plays a mournful passage. Then soli for bass flute and violin are juxtaposed to a bass line similar if not identical to the one that opened this intensely emotional musical walk down memory lane.  

Neuma Records’ Sonidos Cubanos 2 produced by Cuban-American composer Orlando Jacinto Garcia is an invaluable sound anthology that provides the opportunity for five talented composers to share their uniquely diverse music with a larger audience, for which heartfelt applause is due Neuma Records‘ Philip Blackburn for creativity and enterprise.

Rafael de Acha     ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

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.”