Miguel del Aguila
COMPOSER
Eroica Trio new 2022 CD album Miguel del Aguila BARROQUEADA
BARROQUEADA
piano trio for violin, cello and piano
TO ORDER MUSIC
Written for The Eroica Trio, Barroqueada, a violin, cello and piano trio, was commissioned 2020 by Ted Viviani. Eroica Trio recorded it in 2021 and released it on its 2022 album Barroqueada. The world premiere on November 2022 by Reverón Trio was a stounding success followed by numerous performances in 2023. Among others at Music Institute of Chicago and the West Coast premiere by Puget Sound Piano Trio in Tacoma, WA
The eight movements are unified by an overall structure which includes an introduction, a coda and the Sarabande as the dramatic center of the work.
1. Preludio en Candombe
2. Pavana
3. Milonga
4. Samba Corrente
5. Pasapié
6. Sarabanda Rota
7. Tango Intermezzo
8. Jiga Frenética
Barroqueada is a contemporary interpretation of the Baroque suite. Each movement blends elements from the 16th. Century counterpart with contemporary Latin idioms and dances. This somewhat irreverent, fresh and more dramatic music – orchestrated for a very traditional ensemble as is the piano trio – seeks to make a social comment about the peripheral acceptance of Latin elements in contemporary American concert music. While many listeners accept Irish/Scottish Jigs or German Allemandes as mainstream, non-ethnic music, many are still surprised to hear a piano trio perform a suite made out of Afro-American Latin Dances such as Candombe, Samba and Tango. Miguel del Aguila: “The almost 400 year old Baroque Suite stands as an example of how classical music was able to integrate music from different cultures, social classes, ethnicities and styles into one coherent work. Popular dances of humble folk origins became with time fashionable aristocratic dances and finally an instrumental genre that enriched the classical music tradition to later stifle and fall out of fashion. Just as it happened with the Baroque suite before being revived by scholars as an historical genre, our society and classical music traditions stifles when we stop incorporating new idioms and cultural expressions into the main stream of American contemporary music. Musically, the texture is always thin often making rhythm the most important part of the music.
GRAMMY Nomination for SALON BUENOS AIRES
for best classical album
GRAMMY Nomination for CLOCKS
for best classical contemporary composition
GRAMMY Nomination for CONCIERTO EN TANGO
for best classical contemporary composition
At the GRAMMYs for Concierto en Tango nomination
Miguel del Aguila with Roman Mekinulov Joann Falletta from Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
At the GRAMMYs for SALON BUENOS AIRES
Miguel del Aguila with Ken Freudigman Ken Masur from Camerata San Antonio
Miguel del Aguila on YouTube
For inquiries: m@migueldelaguila.com
Three-time Grammy nominated American composer Miguel del Aguila was born in Uruguay in 1957. In over 130 works that combine drama, driving rhythms and nostalgic nods to his South American roots, he has established himself among the most distinctive and highly regarded composers of his generation. His music, which enjoys over 200 performances annually, has been hailed as “brilliant and witty” (New York Times), “sonically dazzling” (Los Angeles Times) and “expressive and dramatic” (American Record Guide). Recorded on more than 55 CDs, his music has been performed by over 100 orchestras throughout the Americas and Europe, including the Chicago Symphony and Chicago Philharmonic, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; the Kiev, Odessa, Heidelberg, Royal Liverpool, Buffalo, Louisiana and Ciudad de México Philharmonics; and the Welsh BBC, Toronto, Nashville, Seattle, Albany, San Antonio, Long Beach, Fort Worth, Santa Barbara, Caracas and São Paulo Symphonies, and the Orchestra of the Americas.
Conductors who have performed del Aguila’s works include Leonard Slatkin, JoAnn Falletta, Giancarlo Guerrero, Marin Alsop, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Lukas Foss, Gerard Schwarz, Jorge Mester, Guillermo Figueroa, David Allan Miller, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Andrew Litton, Eckart Preu, Dirk Meyer, and José Arean.
Notable among over a thousand chamber ensembles performing his works are the Sphinx Virtuosi, Windscape, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, SOLI, New Juilliard Ensemble, Eroica Trio, Philadelphia Chamber Ensemble, Collegium Novum Zürich, Imani Winds, Fifth House, Cuarteto Latinoamericano, and the Pacifica and Verona string quartets.
Festivals performing his music include Aspen, Cabrillo, Chautauqua, Ravinia, Oregon Bach Festival, Minnesota Orchestra Sommerfest, Bregenz Festspiele, Wiener Festwochen, Budapest Spring, Cervantino, and Prague Spring. In addition to his three Latin Grammy nominations, del Aguila has received a Kennedy Center Friedheim Award, a Magnum Opus/Kathryn Gould Award, grants from The Composer New Music USA/Music Alive and the Copland Foundation, and the Lancaster Symphony Composer of the Year award. He has held extensive composer residencies with the Orchestra of the Americas (2020); the Danish Chamber Players/Ensemble Sorstrøm (2021); the Chautauqua Institution Music Festival (2001-2004); and a two-year residency with the New Mexico Symphony provided by a Meet the Composer/Music Alive Award, resulting in the fully staged premiere of his opera Time and Again Barelas (2007). Del Aguila serves as a member of the Barlow Endowment’s Board of Advisors. After graduating from San Francisco Conservatory, del Aguila studied at Vienna’s Universität für Musik. Early premieres in the Musikverein and Konzerthaus were followed by performances in the U.S. in Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall and The Brooklyn Philharmonic conducted by Lukas Foss. Soon after he settled in Southern California in 1992, the Los Angeles Times praised him as “one of the West Coast’s most promising young composers.” After many years in California, where he taught composition and for three years served as music director of the Ojai Camerata, del Aguila moved to Seattle. - www.migueldelaguila.com