Remembering "Montes"

“Montes” is, of course, the title of my String Quartet No. 1. But, more importantly, it is the surname of the great painter to whom the quartet is an homage, Fernando Montes (1930-2007).

 

There is a post somewhere in this blog about that musical work and the paintings each of its movements is based on. I refrain from giving the link here since the migration of this blog to a new website is now imminent and I prefer to avoid saddling this text with a broken link.

 

Recently the Americas Society posted a remembrance of the work’s New York première (the world première had been in Philadelphia in the presence of the painter's widow). I am pleased to provide a link for that (see video). The work of the splendid players of the Momenta Quartet deserves exposure. 

 

Correction: on quick inspection I find no previous post where I specify the correspondence between Montes's paintings and the three movements of the Quartet. They are: 1. City of Silence, 2. The Gate of the Moon, 3. Music and Land. You can find other information on this String Quartet's past by clicking on the "Fernando Montes" tag. 

"Montes" es, claro está, el título de mi Cuarteto de cuerdas No. 1. Pero, más importante que eso, Montes es el apellido del gran pintor a quien la obra musical rinde homenaje, Fernando Montes (1930-2007).

 

Hay un artículo en alguna parte de este blog que trata de esa obra musical y de las pinturas de Montes sobre las que cada uno de los movimientos del Cuarteto está basado. Me abstengo de poner el enlace aquí ya que la migración de este blog a un nuevo sitio de internet es inminente y no quiero dejar esta página con un enlace roto. 

 

Hace poco la Sociedad de las Américas de Nueva York publicó una remembranza del estreno neoyorquino del Cuarteto (el estreno absoluto fue en Filadelfia y contó con la presencia de la viuda del pintor). Para eso sí me place proporcionar el enlace (ver video). El trabajo de los espléndidos ejecutantes del Cuarteto Momenta merece difusión. 

 

Corrección: haciendo un repaso rápido no encuentro un artículo que especifique la correspondencia entre los tres movimientos del Cuarteto y las obras de Montes que los inspiraron. Ellas son 1. Ciudad de silencio, 2. La puerta de la luna, 3. Música y Tierra. Hay, sí, otras informaciones sobre este Cuarteto; las puede encontrar pulsando en la etiqueta "Fernando Montes".

Momenta in Bolivia

The Momenta Quartet have been among my main collaborators for quite some time. In 1997 they gave the first performance of my String Quartet No. 1 ‘Montes’ at Rock Hall Auditorium, Philadelphia, and they went on playing the piece many times since. In 2008 they visited Newcastle, playing ‘Montes’ at the ¡Vamos! Festival and at King’s Hall.

Years later, Momenta successfully applied for a Koussevitzky commission for what was to become my String Quartet No. 2, ‘Sin tiempo’, which they premièred in 2013 at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, and this work too became part of their repertoire. A highlight was their performance of ‘Sin tiempo’ as part of the 2017 Momenta Festival at the Americas Society, a performance which attracted much attention and heart-warming reactions from the press.

A visit to Bolivia by Momenta was long overdue. Over the years I repeated spoke to relevant institutions in the hope of arousing their interest in a Momenta project. It was only when I eventually approached the USA Embassy in La Paz that I met a receptive response. In retrospect it seems odd that I did not think of them in the first place.   

So it was that Momenta came to Bolivia in October 2018. The project included working with the students at Instituto Laredo coaching the strings of the Laredo Youth Orchestra, giving a concert as a string quartet and taking part in an orchestral programme as soloists and as members of the string section. 

The chamber concert took place on 24 October at the beautiful church of Convento Santa Teresa, which has been lovingly restored with funding from the USA Embassy. The programme consisted of works by living composers from the USA and my ‘Sin tiempo’. Admission was free. The public began to queue up about an hour in advance, and by the time we were due to start there were so many people standing in the aisles and in the atrium that many were unable to get in and had to go home. 

Momenta gave a spirited rendition of Eric Nathan’s Four to One, of Philip Glass’s String Quartet No. 2 ‘Company’, of Roberto Sierra’s String Quartet No. 2 and of my String Quartet No. 2 ‘Sin tiempo’. These works proved an excellent choice for the occasion, and the audience surprised us by staying put till the end of a not undemanding programme of contemporary music. 

As to ‘Sin tiempo’, it may be because over the years Momenta have grown to know my work deeply, or because they were in my home country and hometown, playing within thirty metres of the spot where I was born, or because they were playing in a beautiful church to a rapt and numerous audience, or because of a combination of some or all of these factors. The fact is that they played magnificently. Rarely, if ever, have I heard my own music performed to such standard of perfection and commitment. This was one of life’s most rewarding musical experiences. 

The next two days Momenta were soloists in an orchestral programme at the theatre of Instituto Laredo. The conductor was Alejandro Posada, a maestro with an international career who had been invited for the occasion by Fundación Bravura. The same foundation had invited three Venezuelan musicians, members of Orquesta Juvenil Simón Bolívar, to take part in the project. They played one of Vivaldi's Concerti Grossi, Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante and Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 ‘Jupiter’. This orchestral experience was a logical continuation of last year’s Beethoven programme which I had prepared and conducted in August 2017. It was reassuring to see that the orchestral standard continues to rise at Laredo and that the recurrence of international projects involving visiting professionals is producing the desired results. Momenta shone in the Vivaldi in the Mozart, gaining many admirers among the orchestra members and the audience. 

Throughout the week there were rehearsals and masterclasses, enabling Momenta to leave a lasting mark in the development of all the young people with whom they interacted. 

To say that Momenta in Bolivia was a success would be an understatement. It was a truly inspirational and developmental experience for many, bringing audiences and students in Cochabamba into contact with excellent music and musicians from the USA, enabling students to improve their technique and musicianship, and making it possible for a Bolivian composer such as I to interact at a high level with his native audience. 

Thanks are due to Instituto Laredo, which is now the main driving force for music in Cochabamba, to the Embassy of the United States in Bolivia for their generous and determined support, to Fundación Bravura for seizing the moment to enhance this project with the presence of an outstanding conductor of international profile and of three young Venezuelan professionals whose contribution as performers and coaches was very noticeable and enjoyable. 

To the four members of Momenta, Emilie-Anne Gendron, Alex Shiozaki, Stephanie Griffin and Michael Haas, there are no words to thank them and congratulate them. They were outstanding in every respect, and they have left a trail of admiration and respect among those who heard them and those who worked with them.  

After New York

The Momenta Quartet's performance was impressive indeed.

I greatly admired the commitment and the intensity of their rendition. Each of the four individuals showed command of their part and their role in this challenging piece. The succession of solos in the second movement Plegaria was an opportunity to enjoy the diversity of their personalities and the discipline with which they integrate into a cohesive whole. The finale was an opportunity to appreciate their tightness even in the most frenzied passages. They are a truly professional string quartet, and one of the most thrilling groups I have every worked with.

The audience was appreciative. It included some people I had long known and admired, such as the composer Ezequiel Viñao, and some people I was privileged to meet for the first time, such as the clarinetist Camila Barrientos Ossio. I am grateful for their interest and support.

Photo by Camila Barrientos Ossio

'Sin tiempo' in New York

The new string quartet has now been performed four times, and today we will hear its New York première.

At yesterday's rehearsal the Momenta Quartet demonstrated the extent of their achievement so far. It is impressive indeed. They play with passion, with commitment and with a determination more than worthy of the topic that gave rise to the music. It is exhilarating to witness such an impassioned display of artistry.

The concert is at HiArt! Gallery in TimeIn, 227 West 29th Street, NYC

String Quartet No. 2, 'Sin Tiempo'

The Koussevitzky commission is now completed. It took me one and a half years' work – obviously not full-time, since university work only allows a fraction of my week to be spent on composition - but intensive enough. The last few months I had to find additional hours in the day, starting in the very early hours, before the family woke up. Six hours' sleep is not a regime I thrive on, but it was the only way of achieving results.

The Momenta Quartet were very tactful in not applying pressure, even as time went by and the agreed time for a première - autumn 2013 - approached. Now, with any luck, they will be able to prepare the new piece over the summer and release it to the world as scheduled. We do not have a specific performance date as yet.

This is probably a good time to explain some of the background and the nature of the piece.

'Sin tiempo' are the first two words of a longer title: Sin tiempo para las palabras: Teoponte, la otra guerrilla guevarista en Bolivia (“No time for words: the other Guevarist guerrilla campaign in Bolivia”). That is the title of Gustavo Rodríguez Ostria's monograph on a guerrilla campaign that took place briefly in 1970 at Teoponte, a mining district northeast of La Paz.

Teoponte is also the subject of an eponymous opera of mine, premièred at the London International Opera Festival 1988. Teoponte is not a full-scale operatic display, but a shorter affair, 35 minutes, for six singers and an electroacoustic soundtrack. A digression on this older work may be useful for an understanding of the new piece.

Living as a student in London at the time (1987), I found it beyond my reach to find a suitable collaborator to write the libretto. This did not feel like a severe inconvenience, since, as I researched the topic, I was developing a clear conception of how I wanted to treat the story. Thus came about as a natural development for me to write my own libretto, based as much as was feasible on the historical facts of 1970 - remembered from childhood and more freshly gleaned from the pages of El Diario, La Paz's conservative daily. Miraculously, many of its issues of the relevant period were available on microfilm at London's Colindale Library.

Contemporary sources were scarce. I contacted Isabel Hilton, then Latin American correspondent at The Independent. She was very helpful and pointed me in the direction of James Dunkerley, the author of a well-researched book on Bolivian politics in the relevant period, Rebellion in the Veins: Political Struggle in Bolivia 1952-1982. One paragraph in the book relates to the episode, but I inferred that Dunkerley knew more, so I sought him out. Dunkerley, too, was very helpful. He received me at his office in Queen Mary University of London, with a surprising treat: he opened a packet of Casino, a strong brand of dark tobacco much in favour among Bolivian students and intellectuals. I was not a smoker, but I could neither decline the hospitality nor resist a nostalgic taste of earlier times. Dunkerley explained his take on Teoponte, opening my eyes to aspects I had only been half-aware of, such as, for example, the influence of Liberation Theology on the catholic contingent among the insurrectionists. He kindly lent me his copy of Teoponte, una experiencia guerrillera, a succinct testimonial by the Brazilian priest Hugo Assmann, which I used intensively and returned to Dunkerley by post.

Memories, press, two conversations, one book. Based on these exiguous sources I formed a conception and fashioned a libretto that was simple, pithy and essentially distilled from contemporary speeches, reports and communiques.

Teoponte the opera was performed at the Bloomsbury Theatre, as part of the 1988 London International Opera Festival. The performers were Innererklang Music Theatre, directed by Séan Doran. The reception seemed enthusiastic on the night, but appeared mixed in the press. It was instructive to hear appraisals from colleagues who had attended, including one from Trevor Wishart - whose Anticredos Innererklang had performed in the same programme - who opined that Teoponte showed an excessive closeness of its composer to its subject. 

Wishart’s comment was perceptive, but I am not convinced that it was possible to form an informed opinion on the basis of that performance. I cannot fault Séan Doran or any member of his team; they worked with commitment and artistry in difficult circumstances. It is the circumstances I find fault with: a tight timescale and a breach of understanding between Innererklang and me as to the role of the tape part. They had expected occasional electroacoustic interventions, whereas I presented them with a soundtrack to which they were expected to synchronise from beginning to end.

It had not been my intention to surprise; I simply had not considered any other possibility than a fully developed tape part as a substitute for the orchestra, that is, as a continuous stream of sound, not only supporting and punctuating what the voices did, but also carrying the flow of expression whether the voices were singing or silent. And, it would be disingenuous not to mention it, I delivered the completed tape part to the performers two weeks prior to the première, that is, far too late for them to assimilate it properly.

This is tempting, but I must postpone a detailed description of Teoponte the opera. I will only say that it is set in a folk club, it is in four scenes or tableaux, and its structure – both locally and overall – is based on four chords which happen to be quite common in Bolivian folk music.

I will also say that, back in my very young days as a folk musician in Cochabamba, I knew Benjo Cruz, a charismatic solo singer who was a frequent visitor at the folk club where most of my gigs took place, Peña Ollantay. I greatly admired the intensity if his performances, charged with the energy of his political convictions. I did not fully understand these at the age of eleven, but I was aware, like any Bolivian of any age was, of an ideological struggle between the establishment, broadly associated with right-wing military dictatorships, and a younger front who opposed it and wanted change. I had seen the demos and the riots, I had smelt the tear gas, and I had heard the shots. Both my parents were journalists and news were always table conversation. I was certainly aware of Che Guevara and of the entrenched polarisation in public opinion after his death.

Benjo Cruz sang protest songs. He would first work the crowd with some lively traditional repertoire, and then he would hit them with a thinly veiled political message in the form of a song or a recitation. The folk club – Peña Ollantay – was a popular weekend entertainment, and it was well attended by a cross-section of the population, including the well-heeled. Benjo would not temper his message if there was a public official or dignitary in the audience. This added to the electricity in the atmosphere of his performances, and yet I never witnessed any unpleasantness.

What could not escape my or anybody’s notice was that a new guerrilla campaign had begun. ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional) had made good a promise made on the death of Che Guevara: volveremos a las montañas (we shall return to the mountains) and had unleashed a new insurrection against the military regime. Among the fighting rebels was Benjo Cruz. Over the next few months, either in combat or in summary executions, the military killed 59 out of the 67 rebels. Benjo was one of the casualties.

The story of my attachment to this topic is long and entangled. I tell it in greater detail elsewhere, and will tell it in even greater detail when I have the chance.

For today’s purposes, I will say that Gustavo Rodríguez Ostria’s book opened my eyes to many facts and ideas I had only superficially known, or intuited, and many other facts and ideas which I had not known. If this book had been in existence in 1987, Teoponte the opera would have been very different indeed.

Hence the need to write more about Teoponte. My business is unfinished. In 2012 I completed Souvenir de Teoponte for double bass and piano, a piece where I return to some of the opera’s material and I test its potential in a new medium. As well as the harmonic and structural conception, there was the conversion of electroacoustic sounds into double bass and piano sounds to explore. James Rapport and Eduard Lanner, and then James Rapport and Linus Kohlberg, have done committed work with this piece in Vienna.

Now I present my Second String Quartet, ‘Sin tiempo’. It too revisits some structural and thematic material from the opera, even where it is only in passing evocation. It engages with the world of turmoil, commitment, strife and self-sacrifice for an ideal that characterised that moment in history. It brings the past to the present and it does so in several layers. It pays homage to some of those fighters – Benjo Cruz in particular – and to Gustavo Rodríguez Ostria for his enormous achievement. It also celebrates the artistry of the Momenta Quartet, who I know will do a superb job with the work.

Koussevitzky commission

For the last few months I have been battling with a piece for double bass and piano. Along with the trombone, this is the instrument in the orchestra I feel I understand the least. Its workings may be based on the same basic principles as those of the violin and the viola, of which I do claim a good knowledge. But the size, the tuning in fourths, the strings’ thickness and length, the very different proportions and resulting differences in the physicality between the player and the instrument, they all strike me as an unknown world. I would have never volunteered to write for it if someone else had not planted the idea in my head, in this case James Rapport, a professor at Vienna’s Bach Musikschule. 

With impressive initiative, some time ago Professor Rapport offered to transcribe one of my existing pieces for the double bass. Partly in recognition of this commitment, partly from serious doubts that any of my existing pieces could be successfully adapted for the double bass, and partly, too, out of curiosity, I offered to write a new work instead. That is how I came to be treading this outlandish territory. It is a learning process, and I don’t find it easy.  

Not many days ago, on Bolivia’s national day - 6 August -  I received the wonderful news that the Koussevitzky Foundations (that is, The Serge Koussevitkzy Music Foundation in The Library of Congress and The Koussevitzky Foundation) had graciously decided to commission a new quartet from me for the Momenta Quartet. This brought me joy. At a time of dwindling opportunities in the UK this comes as a much-needed reminder that not all is indifference and that somebody has been listening, even some distinguished ears.  

For quite some time I have been in awe at the stratospheric - and rising - standard of the performances the Momenta Quartet have been offering of my String Quartet No. 1, ‘Montes’. Their première of it in 2007 in Philadelphia was already the best I could have hoped for; their rendition at King’s Hall in Newcastle the following year was entrancingly impassioned. A recording they sent me of a performance at Cornell University last year (2010) shows them with a new lineup - three players have changed - but playing ‘Montes’ to something worryingly akin to perfection. 

It was the Momenta who applied to Koussevitzky on my behalf, and the application’s success is, I am sure, in no small measure due to their rising prestige in the USA. To have one of the best commissions I know of to write music for one of the best quartets I know of makes a heady combination. 

What makes Koussevitzky any more desirable than any other commission? History, of course. The list of previous recipients is a who’s-who of twentieth-century music, including some legends of the recent past. Next to those one holds close to the heart (Adams, Andriessen, Dallapiccola, Henze, Ligeti, Maw, Stravinsky) are names one cannot but respect (Babbitt, Birtwistle, Britten, Castiglioni, Malipiero, Messiaen, Schoenberg, Stockhausen). The list also includes other names that are less universally acclaimed, and even some others I hadn’t heard before, but I am not letting that dampen the joy, the illusion of breathing for a moment the same air as music's most exalted figures. Ultimately it boils down to this: if Koussevitzky enabled Bartók to compose Concerto for Orchestra, I am jolly proud to have Koussevitzky. 

Am I slow or what. I was aware, I think, at all times, that the two venerable Foundations that made all these commissions had been set up in 1942 by Serge Koussevitzky (1874-1951), a Russian émigré to the US who was a celebrated conductor and entrepreneur. What at some point had slipped my mind was the fact that Serge Koussevitzky was also a virtuoso double-bass player, and the composer of a concerto and other pieces much prized in the repertoire.  When the coincidence dawned on me, I wondered if my efforts grappling with the double bass had acted as an incantation that eventually worked the magic of attracting Koussevitzky to me. I know, their panel takes its own decisions oblivious to any incantatory attempts, based instead on scores and recordings from the composers and the track record of the performing organisation. But it is a temptation to think that I had been currying the eponymous maestro's favour even before the panel convened. 

Meanwhile I grapple on. 

Momenta in Newcastle!

Photograph by John Gurrin

I am thrilled to announce that the Momenta Quartet, unforgettable heroes of the première of of my String Quartet last year in Philadelphia, will be in Newcastle in the flesh. They will be taking part in the ¡Vamos! Festival with two performances.

On Friday 11 July the Momenta will take part in the festival launch at Northern Stage, playing my Montes and an array of other new Latin American music. The violist Stephanie Griffin and the cellist Joanne Lin will stun their audience with two solo pieces by the Brazilian maverick Arthur Kampela. You can actually see and hear one of them, Bridges for solo viola, on Kampela's myspace page. This programme will also include Oleajes by the Colombian composer Alba Potes, and the world première of a new work by my fellow Bolivian Cergio Prudencio. Cergio is currently the most active composer in Bolivia, and he has secured a place in history by co-founding - with his brother José Luis - and work for three decades as the musical director of the Experimental Orchestra of Native Instruments (OEIN). This evening there will be plenty of other musical goodies on offer, which you can look up on the ¡Vamos! Festival programme.

On Saturday 12 July the Momenta will play at King's Hall, Newcastle University. My String Quartet No 1 'Montes' will get a second airing, preceded by another impressive selection out of the Momenta's contemporary repertoire, including two very new pieces written for them by composers based here in the Northeast of England. These will be chosen out of a workshop I have organised with students from Newcastle and Durham universities: Matthew Rowan, Helen Papaioannou, Tom Albans and Eric Egan. Which of these will be chosen? That will be the surprise of the evening. The programme will also include Instantes by the young Venezuelan composer Manena Contreras and Four Pieces for String Quartet one of the fathers of contemporary Cuban music, Alejandro García Caturla.

Connected with the Momenta visit and with my work, there will be a screening of the beautiful documentary by Verónica Souto The Spirit of the Andes exploring the life and work of the Bolivian painter Fernando Montes. This will be at Newcastle University's Culture Lab. The eminent director will be with us to introduce her film.

Details and tickets are available on the ¡Vamos! website. Or you can book directly with Northern Stage, by clicking here or phoning 0191 230 5151.

UK première of 'Montes'

Following the Momenta Quartet's concert in Philadelphia, there will be a performance, here in the UK, of my String Quartet No. 1, 'Montes'. Fittingly, it will be part of an evening celebrating the life and the work of the Bolivian painter Fernando Montes to be held at Bolívar Hall, London. This means that the music, born of a reflection of three of Montes's works, after a circuitous journey will come home, to London, where Montes spent most of his professional life and created most of his work.

The players are not a constituted quartet but will get together specially for this concert. They are Jane Gordon and Adrian Charlesworth, violins, Sara Jones, viola, and the dynamo driving this UK première, the impressive cellist Jennifer Morsches.

On this occasion there will also be another important première, that of the documentary The Spirit of The Andes by Verónica Souto.

This is purely for information, since at the time of writing all tickets have sold out, but, for what it's worth, the performance will take place on Thursday 17 January at 1930 in Bolívar Hall, London.

Première of String Quartet No. 1, 'Montes', in Philadelphia

Miranda Cuckson (violin), Stephanie Griffin (viola), me (composer), Joanne Lin (cello), Annaliesa Place (violin). In the first image, said with Mrs Marcela Montes, widow of the painter Fernando Montes.

It happened last 28 November in Rock Hall Auditorium at Temple University. The performers were the Momenta Quartet, a group for whom I have to check myself if I am not to run out of superlatives. I apologise in advance if I fail.

When I first met them, two days before the concert, they had the new piece learned. Our work together had to do with character, articulation, balance, in a word: interpretation. No complaints about how difficult the music was, no excuses about an unlearned passage, no petty quibbling! Only intelligent requests of clarification, sometimes exposing an inconsistence on my part or leading me to rethink a notational choice.

It was immediately apparent that the Momenta were more than used to working with composers, as the dynamic in rehearsal was one of ease and flowing communication when required. As impressive as this was the respect they showed each other, with no player imposing her view on any other, but instead careful consideration being given to their diverse, strong individualities.

Anyone inferring the result of the above to be a harmonious but bland compromise would be mistaken, for there is plenty of edge in what the Momenta do. Their explosions of energy and passion are as fearful as the ice of their tightest, most controlled pianissimos. Yes, I am no longer referring only to their rendition of my own piece, but also remembering what they did, for example, with Janácek’s Quartet No. 1, 'Kreutzer Sonata'. The passion overflowed without sentimentality, the tragedy raged without melodrama. It was all just so well gauged. And the technique was accomplished throughout; with them we are in a sphere where technique ceased to be a concern at some forgotten point in the past of their young lives.

As for me, I had one of the most enjoyable experiences ever. I was able to sit back, secure in the knowledge that my music was in safe hands, that I did not have to worry about whether this or that passage would come out as written. It came out as written, but better, because it was enriched by the total commitment of these incomparable four musicians. The words 'thank you' sound too hollow to convey my gratitude and admiration for what they do.

The only disappointment of the evening was the small size of the audience, well below what these superb performers deserved. As the talented composition student Ryan Olivier explained to me, this was a hectic time of the year when the students have to split their time among a vast array of concerts and their own assessed recitals at Temple University. Fair enough, but what a loss for the rest of Philadelphia not to have been there! Setting aside the two new works, you do not often hear Janácek and Schumann played with that excellence. The silver lining for me was the presence of Marcela Montes, widow of Fernando, the great Bolivian painter who inspired my quartet and to whom it is dedicated. With Marcela was a small but important group of Bolivians, two of whom I had known in the 1970s in La Paz: Mrs Ximena Iturralde de Sánchez de Lozada and her son Ignacio.

The composition staff was represented by two lecturers who were generous in their enthusiasm, Prof Maurice Wright and one other whose pardon I beg, in the unlikely event he reads these pages, for forgetting his name. Nor can I link him to any of the composition lecturers listed among the composition staff on the Temple website. Their kindly-expressed empathy to the spirit to the quartet was to me an indication of an attunement of mind that makes me want to hear their music.

Young Ryan Olivier himself had a piece premièred, String Quartet. It was impressive in the assurance with which it adhered to an energetic gesturality that is so often lacking in new music. You can hear it on his myspace page. He is a most personable individual too. I think he will go far.

I thank the Boyer College of Music and Dance at Temple University for putting on this event and for their hospitality to me.

New work: String Quartet No 1 'Montes'

Llojeta by Fernando Montes (photograph by Vince Harris, reproduced by permission)

This project is a collaboration with the Momenta String Quartet of New York, who will be performing the new piece at the Rock Hall Auditorium, Temple University, Philadelphia, on 28 November.

The title is a homage to the Bolivian painter Fernando Montes, who died in London last January. Even though he spent much of his life in London, Montes's work is a pure and concentrated distillation of the landscape and soul of Bolivia. Looking at his work, aside from deriving great aesthetic pleasure, I feel impelled to reassess my own position vis-à-vis my native country. It is a temptation to aspire to be to Bolivia in music what Montes is to Bolivia in art.

The new string quartet looks the concept of bolivianity in the face, in its many-sided contradictions and with that painful detachment from the physical reality of the country that turns it into an inner world, possibly the biggest component of oneself, but, unlike the real homeland, impossible to share - other than, perhaps, through music, or the paintings of Fernando Montes.

The piece will also be my personal tribute to a very dear friend, and an embrace of support to his widow Marcela, his daughter Sarita and his son Juan Enrique (also an excellent artist), old allies in friendship and cultural adventures.