East Coast Premiere of Lorenz’s Viola Concerto

  A year after its first performance at Michigan State University, Ricardo Lorenz's Viola Concerto received its East Coast premiere on October 15, 2011.  This time it was outside of Philadelphia, once again with violist Roberto Díaz for whom the concerto titled Canciones de Jara was especially composed, and this time accompanied by Symphony in C, a recently created professional training orchestra lead by conductor Rossen Milanov.   Lorenz's...

Canciones de Jara: Recalling the Soul of an Activist

Though there appears to be a tension between the song short form -simple, with alternating verses and choruses- and the large symphonic form developed during the classical era in Europe, Lorenz uses Canciones de Jara to resolve some of those contradictions and explore the deeper meanings of Jara's songs. 'That's what the symphonic context allows,' he says.  Courier Post's Dave Allen previewing the East Coast premiere of Lorenz's Canciones de...

Music and Sustainable Development in Cuba

When one thinks of Cuba, one thinks of three things: tobacco, revolution, and music.  However, of these three emblems, music best defines the identity of the country.  Since more than a century and a half, music has allowed Cubans to remain attached to the past while at the same time respond to influences and demands from the present.  Throughout the dramatic history of Cuba —which includes slavery, independence from Spain, U.S....

Rumba Sinfónica premieres in the Middle East and South America

Rumba Sinfónica, a thirty-minute concerto of sorts for Latin band and symphony orchestra, was the result of a close collaboration between composer Ricardo Lorenz and pianist/arranger Jorge Gómez.   Since its premiere with the Minnesota Orchestra in the fall of 2007, Rumba Sinfónica has been performed two dozen times by Jorge Gómez’s band Tiempo Libre and different professional, college, and youth orchestras across the...

Second Congress of Musical Creation in San Juan, Puerto Rico

    As a guest composer of the 2nd Congress of Musical Creation hosted by the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico in San Juan, Ricardo Lorenz attended the Caribbean premiere of his work Merengue en el Espejo and delivered a two-part lecture presentation on the topic of finding appropriate spaces for optimal musical creation. The Conservatory of Music’s composition faculty Alfonso Fuentes organized the multidisciplinary event that gathered...