Experience the world premiere of this new piece by percussionist Javier Diaz, whose studio credits include Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story and Lin Manuel Miranda’s In The Heights. Commissioned by the American Symphony Orchestra, this chamber music composition incorporates stylistic elements from music across the Americas and takes us on a journey through history, spaces, and generations. It evokes the idea of ancestral sounds, and it is inspired by traditional musics from the Western Hemisphere: ancient songs from the Afro-Cuban tradition, Mexico, the African-American tradition, Venezuela, Haiti, and a “merging” between a J.S. Bach Chorale and a Venezuelan Merengue.
America UNBOUND is a unique artistic experience that exalts the human condition and underlines the importance of multi-cultural influences in the shaping of the musics of the Americas. This new work is eclectic and Multi-cultural, with a robust compositional design: the American continent unbound through a journey of musical histories and inter-generational melodies, making palpable the universality of sound, word, and song. Performed by a chamber ensemble of ASO musicians (violin, percussion, double bass, clarinet and trumpet) featuring GRAMMY nominated Imani Winds’ oboist Toyin Spellman-Diaz.
Music-lovers will chairs set up to enjoy an after-work respite with live music.
Javier Diaz (b. 1976)
Suns and Moons of a New World
I. Preludio de la Gran Sabana (Prelude of the Great Plains)
II. Mis Muertos Cantan (All My Dead Sing)
III. Concierto Barroco (Baroque Concerto)
IV. Domingos Alvares, A Priest of Sakpatá in Eighteenth-Century Brazil
V. Sinfonía de Cámara (Chamber Symphony)