My work in musical creation encompasses several aspects. As a composer, performer and listener, I'm interested in studying the communicative potential of music, conceived as a sound manifestation and also as a way of exploring our relationship with the world.
Composer
Towards the seventh art
A surprising version of my Piano Sonata is now the soundtrack for Summer Cut. This October the film company Troi Films has released this short film, on which the Dutchman ferrie=differentieel has put the music. The soundtrack is an excerpt from my Sonata, which is led to a superlative point by this multimedia artist's arrangement.
Summer Cut is an amusing counterpoint between the before and after of a haircut. The before is Dutch; the after is pure Hispanic, pure sun, it's an evening by the sea. Check out the teaser trailer.
Premiere of my Piano Sonata
Antonio Reina injected a dose of newness in contemporary music by premiering my Piano Sonata in July 2005, within the frame of the 26th International Music Festival of Ripoll. The artist, critically acclaimed with numerous awards, faced this demanding score and enlightened it boldly in the cloister of Monastery of Santa Maria.
In his performance, meticulous with details and attentive to the overall architecture, Antonio illustrated his conception of my work with scrupulous respect to the score. Focused on sculpting every note within a really complex composition, he judged the scribbled staves with great skill and imagination. And he offered a colorful reading, remarkable for the fluidity with which the performer managed the vivid contrasts between the various episodes, from the most intimate and melodic to the most violent and harsh.
Listener
Pierre Boulez in Barcelona
Pierre Boulez' appearance in L'Auditori, 11 March 2007, with the prodigious Ensemble Intercontemporain, was enthusiastically greeted. The French Maestro conducted an interesting program with his usual clarity of thought and with extraordinary agility. Rigorous, elegant, precise, lucid, thorough. His concept of conducting contemporary music is quite a lesson: his interpretations bring freshness to the repertoire and renew it with a new expressiveness.
The concert, which had pieces by Edgard Varèse and György Ligeti, also included two compositions by the young octogenarian: Dérive 1 and sur Incises, works of exquisite sonorities and an extraordinary sense of fantasy. The splendid performance, by an orchestra honored as the best contemporary music ensemble in the world, made that evening a memorable event in the musical history of Barcelona.
Performer
Rediscovering Arnold Schönberg
Arnold Schönberg, Austrian composer, inventor of twelve-tone music, is the author of several masterworks that influenced the transformation of musical language in the 20th century. In times of artistic crisis, he resorted to the piano and he skillfully wrote crucial scores of extreme technical difficulty which gave a new meaning to the concept of order, now associated with the notion of life, with the idea of the «organic».
The piano works by this outstanding musician, which witness an unusual exploration of new musical territory, are the content of a critical edition I have obtained, which was made from manuscripts, original editions and revisions, and published by Universal Edition. These pages show the composer's lucidity and include the work he wrote in Barcelona in 1929. What captivates me from this repertoire, which I'm studying delightfully, is the cohesiveness that emerges from sound constellations, built with a deep sense of logic.
Manuscript of the Suite, op. 25
Arranger
Collaborator with Andreas Vollenweider
The quirk of fate, or predestination, got what seemed impossible: a project with Andreas Vollenweider. This Swiss musician is the author of music that exudes tranquility, movement and virtuosity, that has captivated countless people around the world and has represented sales of over ten million records. He plays several instruments, most especially an electro-acoustic harp built by himself. As a composer he has demonstrated an extraordinary talent in creating amazing sound watercolors.
The project is an irresistible challenge: the publication of a songbook that will compile a set of compositions by Andreas, illustrated with pictures that he himself painted. In this collaborative context, I'm now working on the transcription of a dozen pieces: it is about transforming the instrumental colors that were recorded on discs, into arrangements for the black and white piano keyboard.
