JORGE TORRES SÁENZ (b.1968): Danzas de Magdala for Chamber Orchestra, Y entreabro la puerta del jardín de los muertos for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Harp, Piano and Pecussion (CENART Chamber Orchestra; Roberto Beltrán-Zavala), Mujer con espejo for Soprano/Actress and Double Bass (Lourdes Ambríz [soprano], Luis Antonio Rojas [double bass]), Cold-Wind garden for Accordion {Eva Zöllner).

Description: These pieces are evocative and imagination-provoking, enigmatic and timbrally original. The “Dances of Magdala” may or may not have anything to do with actual dance, or with the Gospel of Miriam - the booklet notes, at least in English, are a study in obscurity - but they trace a kind of narrative arc, from exquisite traceries of instrumental sound, largely consonant but without stable tonal centers and with eastern and middle-eastern gestures in abundance, to increasing density and rhythmic definition as the cycle progresses. The later dances are increasingly percussion-driven, active and orgiastic. Cold-wind Garden, in memory of Takemitsu, consists of slowly evolving accordion chords in chilly, dissonant harmonies. The monodrama “Woman with Mirror” is a ten-minute 'mad scene' in disintegrating fragments of text depicting psychosis and lost hope, obsession and despair. '... the garden of the dead' is an extended ensemble work based on a fragment of poetry by René Char. Its sensuous colors and shadowy symbolism recall Boulez' settings of Char, though here without voice, emphasizing the strange, suspended resonance of encroaching silence.