Arboretum

For Guitar


Commentary
Recording
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Commentary

At the beginning of 2009 I received an email from the North American guitarist Adam Levin (North Shore, Chicago), asking for contact with me during a trip to Spain that he was going to make shortly after writing to me. He was especially interested in contemporary music, and he informed me about an ambitious recording project to record a series of CDs with music by Spanish composers, in order to promote a cultural exchange between Spain and the United States. Within weeks he was awarded the Program for Cultural Cooperation Fellowship, and in 2010 the Kate Neal Kinley Scholarship.
As a result of the latter, Adam commissioned me to compose a new work for guitar, which I carried out during the summer of 2010 and which I called Arboretum because it was written entirely outdoors, always in the shade of a tree, in various parks and gardens: La Granja Park in León, El Retiro Park in Madrid, La Herradura Park in Santiago de Compostela, the Municipal Park of San Vicente de Raspeig (Alicante) and the surroundings of the Le Mesnil Priory St Martin (Montaut de Villeréal, France).
By way of acknowledgment, the score opens with the scientific names of the trees that provided me with their protective shade during the composition of this work: Gleditsia triacanthos (acacia), Acer saccharinum (maple), Laurus nobilis (laurel), Cupressus sempervirens ( cypress), Cercis siliquastrum (tree of love) and Castanea sativa (chestnut), without their reference going any further in the musical content of the work except, in any case, in the contrasts between the elements put into play (melodic, rhythmic , timbral), which in a way could recreate the differences between some trees and others.
Arboretum was composed between the months of July and September 2010, and naturally it is dedicated to Adam Levin. In July 2021 it was included on his CD "21st Century Spanish Guitar, volume 4", published by the Frameworks label.

Recording

Recording: CD "21st Century Spanish Guitar, volume 4" (Adam Levin) (fragment)

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(Score without watermark available at www.asesores-musicales.com )