Contemporary Chamber Music from Panama

     The idea for Cuatro Microsonoridades (2003) occurred in 2001 while preparing for the piano exit exam of the Composition program at Temple University. Between Bach’s chorales, figured basses, sight-reading and Bartók’s Microcosmos, I would take break s by improvising at the piano and sketching ideas. The objective was to compose little pieces that I would play later on the piano accompanied by my guitar students. However, this never happened, and the sketches were put aside. I completed the Microsonoridades for a later concert, enhancing the piano part and also retouching some guitar sections. The piece was premiered in 2003 by my student Michael Poll and his brother Teddy to whom the piece is dedicated.
     Guarareña (2004) is a name that refers to something that comes from or belongs to Guararé, a small town in Panama where an annual folkloric festival takes place. In Panamanian rural music, a common way for singers to start their performance is by yodeling. The yodel or saloma is basically a vocal warm up. The saloma included in the first movement of Guarareña was sung by a 15 year old girl who was the only female in a singing competition in Guararé. The real melody was in D major and its rhythm is identical to that presented by the alto-flute in the last section of the movement.
     Panamanian folkloric musicians refer to their different styles as torrentes. The Son Maria style used in the second movement has a particular rhythm and in the original, each phrase usually begins with three sixteen-note anacrusis arpeggios. In the weeklong
folkloric festival of Guararé, one can hear music all day long. The streets are full of musicians playing instruments or singing spontaneously at any time. By chance, one day I met the last living Panamanian bull teaser. The minstrel plays very high-pitched melodies on a little flute or whistles made of dry seeds from palm trees. A friend, playing a repetitive pattern on a rustic drum, accompanies him. The sound of his wind instruments and the minimalist percussive rhythm makes the bull get very nervous and ready to fight brave locals. Guarareña’s last movement, “Dance of Bulls with Drizzle,” is an interpretation of surrealistic images on a common rainy day in Panama.
     Camouflage (2000) incorporates techniques of a traditional and a nontraditional musical language. Based on 5 notes, the first section, which is gestural, leads to a more rhythmical one. In this new section, a tango rhythm alternates with a lyrical tune based on Panamanian folk music. The third and last section, integrates all the material used in the beginning of the piece. The presentation of the different musical elements, in a disguised manner, invites the audience to undress what they hear in order to perceive more clearly what they want to hear. Perhaps, the work is best appreciated for what it is: a camouflage of sounds.
     Ludus No.1 (2004) is the first in a series of chamber pieces written without preconceptions of structure, pitches or rhythmic material, featuring the ludic aspect of musical composition. These pieces held the challenge of developing unprepared ideas,
which like an empty canvas wait for the first brush strokes, to spontaneously point in the direction of the final aesthetic results.
     Fantasía Mesana (2003) is a work that explores the possibilities of transmuting the Panamanian Torrente de Mesano from mejorana music into a new language. The mejorana is a small and rustic five-stringed guitar like instrument, unique to Panama. After transcribing mesano style excerpts from field recordings, many interesting aspects of the music were revealed—accents, stroke patterns and harmonic rhythm included. These materials and an insistent and some times intrusive motive from Cuban composer Leo Brouwer’s Concierto de Lieja support the entire piece. Fantasía Mesana is dedicated to my grandfather “Tule” Tristán and, although unfortunately I never met him, I conserve my mother’s vivid description: “Your grandfather was un bellaco (adroit)… He managed to play the mejorana, socavón, guitar or whatever musical instrument they threw to him upside down, so the lower strings were on the bottom because he was left handed.” “Tule” Tristán was born in the town of La Mesa, where the mesano style is believed to have its origin.
     Arizona (1999) is an inspired version of the homonymous painting by Maxfield Parrish and the novel Pedro Páramo by Mexican writer Juan Rulfo, one of the first exponents of the literary genre known as Magic Realism. One can easily imagine the legendary figure of the Kokopelli, walking along the path in Parrish’s painting, and playing the simple flute melody heard after the introduction of the piece, which is reminiscent of Hopi Indian tunes. The presence of sound in Parrish’s setting of high mountains would result in echoes, and this phenomenon is treated in the composition
as a leitmotiv. Arizona or “Perhaps an echo is trapped in here,” a subtitle borrowed from Rulfo’s novel, is a programmatic work that translates influences from visual arts and literature into a soundscape. A metamorphosis similar to that in Pedro Páramo, which is a story that one can hear and see: "I was listening to my steps on the rounded stones of the streets. My hollow steps, repeating their sounds in the echo of the walls dyed by the sun of the dusk." Juan Rulfo (1917-1986).
     Rhythmbrances (2002) is based on three Latin American musical styles: bolero, milonga and choro. The bolero is heard throughout the Latin American countries as a slow tempo song, which is danced cheek to cheek. Its lyrics talk about love or the sadness of not having it, and are usually whispered into the ear of the person one is dancing with. The milonga is a popular rhythm from Argentina, predecessor of the well-known tango. It is usually played on the guitar by the gauchos, cowboys from La Pampa. The choro is a virtuosic, contrapuntal and improvisatory instrumental music that emerged from the streets of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, toward the end of the 19th century. These three styles have been so recurrent in my career as a performer that now they are attached to memories, which I look at nostalgically through the passage of time. Rhythmbrances is a hybrid of rhythms and remembrances, blending Latin American music styles with contemporary compositional techniques.
     The cell 3+3+2, intrinsic to many Latin American styles, is the generative motive of Diálogos entre la Lira de Orfeo y el Tambor de Chimbombó (1995). The cello features a persistent theme, which appears in full or in part throughout the composition. The work makes references to the possible dialogue between Orpheus’ lyre and Chimbombó’s drum. The latest is a character in the poem Incidente de Cumbia by Panamanian writer Demetrio Korsi. The two guitars are transmuted into both: a lyre and a drum, which are depicted through arpeggiation and percussive effects in the instrument. The piece is divided into sections without pauses: The Encounter, The Dialogues, The Solitude of the Lyre after Orpheus Death, and The Abandonment of the Drum after Chimbombo’s Escape.