Amazonia

Featuring Bridget Kibbey, harp
Amazonia presents music arising from and inspired by many South American cultural traditions, and particularly those from three countries that touch the Amazon River and surround the Amazon Rainforest: Peru, Colombia, and Brazil. Gabriela Lena Frank’s Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout freely mixes her study of Western classical traditions with her experience of the musical and cultural traditions of her mother’s ancestral home, the Peruvian Andes, where the first tributaries of the Amazon River originate. Colombian composer Jacqueline Nova’s pioneering works from the 1960s and 70s transcend genres and center the importance of the natural world and indigenous traditions in contemporary society. A Far Cry here performs Doce Móviles, a work inspired by the mobiles of contemporary artists such as Alexander Calder, evoking the hypnotic spin and “zig-zag” of these structures using a combination of serialist transformations and stereophonic stage effects. Rounding out the concert are three works written across the last century engaging with Brazilian musical traditions. From the Boston Premiere of Brazilian guitar virtuoso João Luiz Rezende’s harp concerto, a vibrant exploration of Brazilian popular dance forms written for Bridget Kibbey, to Heitor Villa-Lobos’ achingly nostalgic Chôros No. 5, to Mozart Camargo Guarnieri’s dazzlingly virtuosic concerto for strings and percussion, this concert lives, breathes, and dances with chops, lyricism, and groove.

Musical Program:
Gabriela Lena Frank | Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout
João Luiz Rezende | Harp Concerto, “Recife” (Boston Premiere)
Jacqueline Nova | Doce Móviles
Heitor Villa-Lobos | Chôros No. 5 “Alma Brasileira,” arr. Andrew Roitstein
M. Camargo Guarnieri | Concerto for Strings and Percussion