Maria de Alvear
Asking
Asking is a large-scale work for piano solo that is a meditation and reflection on all of the meanings of the word “Asking”. Asking was specially composed for Eve Egoyan.
Magna Mater
*In process of stocking* "Magna Mater for voices, ensemble and video installation (2013) is one of Maria de Alvears most important recent works. It constitutes a ritualistic invocation of all-nourishing Mother Nature. Sounds, words and images evoke her power and wisdom, the destructive power of earthquake, asteroid impact, drought and firestorm, and the life-giving elements of soil, sun, water, air, sky, clouds, rain.
In this decidedly visceral music, Maria de Alvear explores archetypal human c…
Thinking
* 2021 Stock * When i speak of spirit it is far beyond what most people think of.I am confident in my ways. I dont care about what people think of me because i do know that what i have been shown and told is far beyond. - Tsolagiu M.A. RuizRazo
For piano + violin + videoStephen Clarke - pianoMarc Sabat - violintext: Tsolagiu M.A. RuizRazoLive-recording from 01/12/2001, Glenn Gould Studio, Toronto, Canada
Baum
* 2021 Stock * As if an incantatory ritual, Drums Off Chaos and Maria De Alvear create "acoustic images". The inherent spirit of the object - the essence of the tree comes to life through the interplay of voice and drums, assuming a clear shape in the listener’s mind.
Maria De Alvear’s colourful and expressive singing and the repetitive, insistent rhythms provided by the Drums Off Chaos work towards the same musical idea: from the specific material of each, unusual, highly differentiated sounds …
Llena
* 2021 Stock * To me, Maria De Alvear composes like a natural phenomenon: guided not as much by the coming and going of ideas and emotions, nor addressing them, but like a law of nature impassively displaying a sort of automatic writing that moves the body and courses through the psyche, ultimately demanding full awareness. - Reinier van Houdt
Vagina
* 2021 Stock * Vagina is the longing for the man. This simple sentence holds enormous secrets, starting with the word longing and not least with the word man. Recognizing a man is probably very difficult from a woman's perspective: for several reasons. The most important sine qua non is the fact that a female being must be able to be a woman. In other words, an adult female being, not only in a sexual sense, but - and here is the trick - psychologically. - Maria de Alvear
Maria de Alvear - voice…
Sexo
* 2021 Stock * "Maria de Alvear writes confrontationally personal music along sexual themes ... the same kind of spiritual revolution that John Cage ... did here 30 years ago. The work Sexo for female narrator/performer and orchestra is a passionate examination of all the taboos and all the advantages and disadvantages involved with sexuality. A poetic explosion of feeling, emotions, sexual fantasies and deep mystical and metaphysical thought. Sexo is in fact an imaginary journey that the listen…
World
* 2021 Stock * A sprawling, wandering hourlong geological survey of the composer’s ambitious spiritual world. Her music does not develop; it accumulates. - Bernard Holland, New York Times
The only single, continuous orchestral movement I know of to surpass the finale of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony in duration. - Kyle Gann, Village Voice
Hildegard Kleeb - pianoJoseph Kubera - pianoThe Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble Petr Kotik - conductor
Libertad
* 2021 Stock * "There are pieces which must be done. The work Libertad is one of them. Inspired by the lyrics of Tsolagiu M.A. RuizRazo, it is one of those compositions that gave me enormous pleasure while working and that accompanied me with a wave of very great power [...] Perhaps this work [...] is one of those that carry the most power. There is an enormous mysterious protective circle around it. It is one of the works that has given me the most riddles, that contains knowledge that I can on…
Sexo Puro
* 2021 stock * Nobody who attended the first performance of Sexo Puro is ever likely to forget it. On that October afternoon, the conciliatory power of this work, which Maria de Alvear sees as a “meditation on inner goodness”, came into sharp collision with the irreconcilable powers that sometimes gather at contemporary-music festivals.
It was probably not even the theme of sexuality that so profoundly disturbed a part of the audience at the 1998 Donaueschingen Festival, even though it is seldom…
De Puro Amor & En Amor Duro
*2021 stock* What is one to make of Maria de Alvear’s two long solos for piano, De puro amor (‘Of pure love’) and En amor duro (‘In hard love’), both composed in 1991. The scores themselves, if one decides to start from here, are completely perplexing. Pages and pages are marked with hastily scratched notes, sometimes repeating themselves dozens of times. Little priority seems to have been given to rhythm, dynamics or articulation; even less to the notational conventions such as barlines, spacin…
Flores
**2021 stock** Flores, like any other work of Maria de Alvear, deals with the ideal of inner freedom. This is not a mere claim, it is manifested in the shape of the piece itself. Written in the author's typical mixture of composition and notated improvisation, the text leaves a certain scope to the seven instrumentalists as to the elaboration of the rhythm and at times also the intonation. The score has almost no directives for the parts of the two singers: what and how the singing is performed …
Besando El Tiempo
Besando el Tiempo is a piece that was composed in 1995 in the space of four days. It was written in an automatic script that Maria de Alvear uses for many of her pieces. The work was originally composed for the flautist Caren Levine, who also gave it its first performance in Salzau in 1995. 'besando el tiempo' has now been performed several times worldwide by different interpreters. When Maria de Alvear heard the performance by Antoine Beuger, she asked him to give her a recording for herse…