Meridian Arts Ensemble

This is our ninth CD, and it is being released in the year of our twentieth anniversary. The CD is a travelogue of sorts, containing music we picked up on tour around Latin and South America and in the US. Several of the pieces on this disc were commissioned for our visit to the Subtropics Festival in Miami a city that is a great crossroads of Latin culture in 1997. Other pieces we collected in foreign places or from friends we made in those places. We have brought all this music to our home base, New York, another cross-cultural gathering place. And now to listeners wherever they may be. Timbrando is Portuguese for making a tone or sounding (it is related to the word timbre). This is our ninth CD, and it is being released in the year of our twentieth anniversary. The CD is a travelogue of sorts, containing music we picked up on tour around Latin and South America and in the US. Several of the pieces on this disc were commissioned for our visit to the Subtropics Festival in Miami a city that is a great crossroads of Latin culture in 1997. Other pieces we collected in foreign places or from friends we made in those places. We have brought all this music to our home base, New York, another cross-cultural gathering place. And now to listeners wherever they may be. Timbrando is Portuguese for making a tone or sounding (it is related to the word timbre). Special thanks to Ambassador Donald Easum for his support over the years, and for his help in making this disc possible. Ocho por Radio Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940), arr. Jon Nelson Written in 1933, Ocho por Radio contains all the hallmarks of Revueltas compositional style: rhythmic vigor, a Stravinskian harmonic language, and a distinctly Mexican folk flavor. The title translates roughly as Eight on the Radio, and was originally written for eight players (yes, for a radio performance). In our version the forces are reduced to six players, yet the flavor of Mexico is still vital and ever-present. Daniel Grabois Oblivion Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992), arr. Raymond Stewart Astor Piazzolla was undoubtedly the greatest tango composer of all time. A virtuoso bandoneon player, he single-handedly transformed traditional tango dance music into nuevo tango, a mix of the traditional style with classical music and jazz. Oblivion was originally written for the soundtrack of the 1984 movie Enrico IV (Henry IV), but it has taken on a life of its own as a tremendously popular and beautiful Argentine ballad. Daniel Grabois .......

() I have always thought of Meridian Arts Ensemble as the Kronos Quartet of the brass world new music, and often delving boldly into realms like jazz, rock, and non-Western music. They sound terrific in this collection of Latin American music. () American Record Guide