So happy for this review, and thankful to the amazing musicians that brought #ViolinConcerto to life last weekend in #SantaBarbara!
Review #DanielKepl / #VOICE Santa Barbara, CA 1/27/2023
“Miguel del Águila’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 94, El viaje de una vida - The Journey of a Lifetime (2007), is a stunningly accessible if beastly difficult recent entrant in the violin concerto sweepstakes. Its four movements – Crossing the Ocean to a New World, In the Purple Land, The Return, and Finale - the violin soloist accepting the musical mantle of immigrant protagonist throughout the work, contemplate the gauntlet of physical as well as psychological challenges all travelers face when leaving their homeland for a foreign land and culture.
De Águila himself a living witness to the immigrant struggle, having traveled from his native Uruguay to the United States (where he received his American citizenship) as a young man, then to Europe for a period of years and back again to America in 1992, has created a score as sweeping as the oceans, actual and allegorical, that separate whole continents and peoples.
Puerto Rican violinist/conductor Guillermo Figueroa, who premiered del Águila’s concerto in 2007 and has been performing it around the world ever since, was the featured soloist last weekend in Santa Barbara, approaching its virtuoso musical cautionary tales with the sublime self-confidence of one who owns the work – every note of it…
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