Bronx Arts Ensemble

Roberto Sierra (b 1953) is thoroughly versed in international composing techniques, yet dedicated to preserving the cultural identity of his Latin American origins. According to Sierra, he has “incorporated elements of folklore and of popular music (urban folklore) in order to create a music that in essence is Puerto Rican, and portrays the marvelous and contradictory world of [that] tropical island.”

Doña Rosita la Soltera (Doña Rosita the Spinster), for soprano and wind quintet, dates from 1985. The text is drawn from the Act I monologue of the play of the same title by Federico García Lorca, written in 1935, six years after the Andalusian poet's sojourn in New York, and the year before his death. Salsa para Vientos (1983), an atmospheric work, is divided into three movements—Tropical, Antillana, and Jaleo (jam session)—of contrasting mood, but sharing certain thematic elements. There are allusions to Puerto Rican popular music and even to tropical night sounds, including a “cadenza with tropical insects” toward the end of the Jaleo.

Like Dvorák, Hector Campos Parsi (b 1922) has written both national- and international-style music. Parsi's compositional approach is fundamentally tonal, though he has branched out on occasion into electronic and aleatoric music. Sonetos Sagrados (Sacred Sonnets), the first Puerto Rican score written for the 500th anniversary of Columbus' voyage of discovery, commemorates an Old-World Spanish heritage, albeit from a period slightly later than that of Columbus. The five songs are based on four sources from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, known as the Siglo de Oro (Golden Age) of Renaissance Spain. The songs explore the various aspects of the relationship between God and the human individual. The composer describes this work as “a small sacred cantata, each section casting a different light on the many faces of divine love.”

Attracted to unusual combinations of instruments, Max Lifchitz (b 1948) has written extensively for chamber ensembles and small orchestra, on occasion utilizing electronic instruments and tape as supplements. Yellow Ribbons is part of an ongoing series of compositions—now about halfway completed, and designed to reach a total of 64—one for each captive held during the Iran hostage crisis. Yellow ribbons worn in honor of the hostages stirred the composer to a way of “celebrating the artistic and personal freedom so often taken for granted in the West.” Each work in the series uses a different instrumentation, ranging from solo through chamber to orchestral. The composer has written, “They share some melodic, harmonic and rhythmic relationships, and some motivic material reappears throughout the series.”