Encuentros

This work was originally commissioned by the Mexican TV network Televisa to be included (on recording) as part of the music of the Mexican Pavillion at the Seville World Fair of 1992. Encuentros didn't have a title at the time and it was intended to be heard, specifically, in the section of the pavilion called "Mexico Today." In other words, the music was supposed to sound deliberately and unmistakably "Mexican" and, at the same time, convey a sense of modernity, progress, and optimism (as applied to the state of the country, not to the aesthetic of "modern" music). Therefore, I set out to write an overtly Mexican-sounding piece, with some traditional and energetic rhythms alternating with melancholic tunes. I prominently assigned solos to instruments that I thought were evocative of Mexico, such as the harp, the flute, the violin and, of course, the trumpets, which naturally call a Mariachi band to mind. It is, without a doubt, one of the most deliberately and obviously ?Mexican? works that I have ever written. The harp plays an important role from the beginning, and one could say that it gives a flavor of the ?jarocho? to the whole piece. In the fast sections, there are rhythmic passages in ?huapango? style and themes in the trumpets which inevitably recall mariachis. So, the orchestral colors and combinations along with the character of the themes and the rhythms give the piece a Mexican character: the flute and piccolo, the tuba, horns, marimba, clarinets, oboe ? The Mexican colors are enhanced by the percussion, including claves, guiro, maracas? One person that deserves to be mentioned in connection with Encuentros is the conductor Benjam