JIMMY LÓPEZ (b.1978): Perú Negro, Synesthésie, Lord of the Air for Cello and Orchestra, América Salvaje.

Description: This Peruvian composer studied in northern Europe and settled in the USA, where much of his career successes have taken place, while in his recent works re-establishing a connection to his native roots. 'Black Peru' celebrates Afro-Peruvian music, with several traditional songs quoted in the course of a colorful and energetic neo-romantic tone poem (with, for some reason, distinct echoes of the Symphonie fantastique in parts!), updated with nods to minimalism and film music. López responded to a French commission for a five-movement work lasting about 10 minutes with an exploration of synæsthesia, with a movement for each of the senses, vividly orchestrated and of very different character but intertwined in their rhythmic or thematic gestures. The Lord of the Air is the Andean condor, depicted in a four-movement cello concerto with an harmonically indeterminate opening movement, a swirling perpetuum mobile, a soaring, static slow movement, both much more tonal, the latter incorporating the work's airy cadenza, and a grandly triumphant descent recalling the second movement. 'Wild Americas' includes traditional instruments and idioms in a constantly crescendoing, relentlessly energetic exultant celebration of Peruvian landscape and culture. Jesús Castro-Balbi (cello), Norwegian Radio Orchestra; Miguel Harth-Bedoya.