Grupo Encuentros / Alicia Terzian 40 YEARS OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC

Since composer, conductor and musicologist Alicia Terzian founded Grupos Encuentros in 1978, the six-person group has garnered international acclaim for its success at bringing the music of avant-garde Argentinian and Latin American composers to the world. On 40 YEARS OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC, their debut recording for NAVONA RECORDS, the group combines compositions from such well-known Latin American composers as Heitor Villa-Lobos, Alberto Ginastera, and Terzian herself with works by an international array of composers that ranges from Anton Webern (Germany) to Luciano Berio (Italy) to Franz Schreker (Austria) to Pierre Boulez (France).

Grupo Encuentros consists of mezzo soprano Marta Blanco, pianist Claudio Espector, flutist Fabio Mazzitelli, clarinetist Matias Tchicourel, violinist Sergio Polizzi and violoncellist Carlos Nozzi.  In this CD, saxophonist Maria Noel Luzzardo, oboist Ruben Albornoz, bassoonist Ernesto Imsand and percussionist Arauco Yepes join Encuentros Group. The program presented on 40 YEARS OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC originally premiered at the annual Encuentros International Festivas in Buenos Aires and truly highlights the brilliance of these award-winning musicians, who have earned high praise from such media outlets as the Los Angeles Times, where they were lauded as “deeply serious and challenging.” Over their 40 year-long career, the group has performed in more than 300 concert halls and festivals of the main cities of five continents including London’s Royal Albert Hall and New York City’s Merkin Auditorium.

40 YEARS OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC transcends cultural boundaries with such selections as Villa-Lobos’ Choro No 7, which unites the sounds of Amerindian primitivism with the polkas and waltzes of suburban dance halls in Brazil. Emphasizing her status as a renowned ethnomusicologist, Terzian dedicates her composition Yagua Ya Yuca to the Chiriguano and Chanel peoples, who belong to a lost indigenous northwestern Argentinian culture O King was composed the same year as the assassination of Martin Luther King, a tragedy which deeply affected its Italian composer Luciano Berio.

Grupo Encuentros founder Alicia Terzian has composed over 80 compositions for orchestras, orchestra with soloist, and chamber orchestras with and without soloists, musical theater, dance, and multimedia. She travels the world giving seminars on composition and contemporary chamber music at European and American universities and is often invited to participate on juries at international compositions.

Nadine Sierra THERE'S A PLACE FOR US

Nadine Sierra, 2018 winner of the Metropolitan Opera’s prestigious Beverly Sills Artist Award, has made her first album for Deutsche Grammophon and Decca Gold, having signed an exclusive contract with the labels last year. Recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Robert Spano, There’s a Place for Us is scheduled for international release on 24 August 2018, in time to mark the 100th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s birth the following day. The album presents the soprano’s stunning vocal abilities in an eclectic choice of American classical music – as well as works by Bernstein, the repertoire ranges from Stephen Foster and Douglas Moore to Stravinsky and Villa-Lobos, and on again to Ricky Ian Gordon, Osvaldo Golijov and Christopher Theofanidis, with texts in Spanish and Portuguese as well as English. After singing the role of Norina (Don Pasquale) at the Paris Opéra in June and July, Nadine Sierra will perform music from the album at this summer’s major US festivals, including an appearance at Tanglewood’s star-studded Bernstein Centennial Celebration.

America’s founding colonists were sustained by the belief that they were building “a city on the hill”, a place that would serve as a model to all mankind. Countless migrants have journeyed there since to share the American dream. Nadine Sierra’s story stands for the stories of millions whose families have made a fresh start in the United States. The critically acclaimed lyric soprano and Fort Lauderdale native, who celebrated her 30th birthday in May, understands the essential contribution made by migrants to the nation’s growth. Her mother is Portuguese, while her father’s family hails from Puerto Rico and Italy. There’s a Place for Us, Sierra’s Deutsche Grammophon and Decca Gold debut album, pays tribute to the diverse backgrounds and creative energy of America’s classical composers. It also presents a timely reminder of unity and equality, of integration and optimism, at a time when anti-immigrant rhetoric is increasing, and fault-lines are widening between divided communities in the US and beyond.