José Miguel Delgado:
"José Emilio Pacheco's poem, El Mar Sigue Adelante, is of an unmeasurable beauty. Its words are full of raw power, describing the Sea as a prisoner for eternity, forever struggling. The music I wrote aspires to prolong that idea."

Carlos Barraza:
„3 poemas (3 poems) is a small cycle of 3 miniatures, made with 3 poems by Jaime Sabines: El día,
Horal and Doña luz XVIII; all of them are a bit contemplative, but with a clear line from dawn to death.
With this music, I seek to represent the atmosphere in which I submerge when I read the poems, and
I hope that the listener can submerge like I do, in that world of expectation and contemplation that I
experienced in those months in which I worked on the piece.“

Alexander Daniels:
„The piece "Un día..." (One day...) is based on a book of haikus by José Juan Tablada, the first Spanish speaking poet who used this short Japanese poetic form. Haikus are very powerful as they can conjure a visual image instantaneously and with very little words.
The musical textures of the piano intend to create a mini-atmosphere for each poem. The melodic material comes from two tone-rows: one derived from the number of syllables of all the haikus of the book, and one conceived as a color-pallet for harmonization. These two rows are twisted around each other and stretched, without changing the order of the notes, to recreate Tablada's pictures: singing birds, raining emeralds and angry geese.
The book is divided into 4 parts: La manana (Morning), La tarde (Afternoon), crepúsculo (Dusk) and La noche (Night); with a prologue at the beginning and an epilogue at the end. This piece is the first part of the book (Prólogo and La manana).“

 

Mario Duarte:

"And where is the truth?... This work is creating a different perspective, an existential searching which is not resolvable by itself, but by jump, in the changings of the vision, in wonder and self-irony as well... Music makes an allusion of confrontation of the love, in a momment of impetus and passion more than of sweetness of a delicate love-affair. Musically, the piece is based on steps (Major and Minor 2nd), utilised as a set for the intervallic system, note collection and a dodecafonic row. The main parameter explored is the rythm, represented in exhaustive forms of ostinatos along with constant changes of the range and the texture. Mellodic line is used in a free manner, utilising the material of steps, series and thus setting foundation for rhythmical interplay."

Marco Cecchetti:
“When i heard the idea of composing for baritone and piano i felt very eager about it but i didn’t know how to affront  the compositional process; it would be a new challenge to me. So by that time It came to me this magnificent ideographic  poem by José Juan Tablada and I’ve realized that it could satisfy all of my musical expression needs. Because of the dramatic and lyric characteristics and the wealthy expressive gamma the musical form and language reveled to me instantly. Tough the rest came along with a very ease.”   

 

 

Omar Rojas: Dos Cuerpos (Two bodies)

 

 

"Dream. Song on the lyrics by Josef Kainar. For tenor and piano. The song came to existence during my studies at the Academy of Arts. The eternal theme of love and death, touching and simple, man´s statement, is stylized by a poet in a collection Lazarus And Song. All is there. I didn´t wish music to explain – it is not necessary. What I desired was to stress and intensify meaning of pronounced thoughts and insert it into the frame of tones. The picture has been perfect. My work was that of a picture-framer."

 

Omar Rojas: „By this work I would like to express a tribute to one of the greatest mexican writers Octavio Paz (this year we commemorate 10th anniversary of his death). My goal was to resemble the intertwining of the contrasting ideas of the poem and to create a fusion of them reaching the climax at the end of the work according to the author of the text envisioning thus the image of "two bodies laced into the night".

 

Edgar Merino: „The words used in this play come from a popular song from the Costa Chica, a region between the states of Oaxaca and Guerrero.  It is a song (or piece) divided into three fragments where different sonorities are explored.  In the first fragment, mainly two intervals (second minor and fourth increased) are explored, in the second fragment, this interval is used for the creation of a twelve row sequence, and in the third fragment both intervals are added for the creation of another sequence.  In this piece, we are also looking for the employment of other vocal resources such as the sounds without pitch or rhythm.“

 

 

 

 

 

To see selected video clips from live performances of the works, please use the navigation panel on the left side of the page.

www.skarka-pohl.com/janacek-revueltas