Canto Caló is the enrapturing debut album by New Mexican composer Nicolás Lell Benavides. Featuring mezzo-soprano Melinda Martinez Becker and Friction Quartet, this release encompasses two major works exploring New Mexican identity, ancestral memories of grandparents, and how those live and breathe within us, cultural connections over generations and what is lost and gained when we revisit our roots. 

The eponymous song cycle honors the memories of Benavides and Becker’s New Mexican grandparents through the exploration of Caló - a Spanish and English dialect spoken by zoot suit wearing Pachucos in the American Southwest. The songs draw from nursery rhymes like El Zapatero, a poem written by Benavides’ grandfather after being drafted to fight in the Korean War, and original lyrics by Benavides and Becker in the heroic style of rancheras and corridos. In the process of writing these songs they interviewed family, remembered stories of these ancestors and their experiences together, and found a new appreciation for what it means to speak Caló.

El Correcaminos is an apt salute to New Mexico's state bird, the roadrunner, with its universal and positive appeal for almost all of the cultures that intermingled there. New Mexico is the meeting place of the South, West, East, and North, much like the four-sided Zia symbol on the state flag. Puebloans lived here for thousands of years, followed by the Navajo (Diné), the Spanish, then Mexicans, and finally the Americans. Benavides found himself pondering how they all saw the same Land of Enchantment. He, like many New Mexicans, is the product of generations of love, conflict, migration, peace, war, spirituality, colonialism, and progressivism.

Khemia Ensemble

Phillip Sink composer
Stefan Freund composer
Nicolas Lell Benavides composer
David Biedenbender composer
Nina Shekhar composer

Release Date: December 9, 2022

Catalog #: RR8081

Format: Digital

INTERSECTIONS from the dynamic chamber group Khemia Ensemble invites listeners to meditate on the confluence of beginnings, endings, and the hope and grief that can accompany those events. With intersections of acoustic chamber music, electronics, and multi-genre influences, the album features a stinging commentary on microagressions (Sink’s Bite!), a tumultuous mother/daughter relationship (Freund’s Song of Persephone), a tender lullaby dedicated to his newborn son, rooted in a family ritual of planting a cottonwood tree(Benavides’ Little Cloud), an exploration of memory inspired by Yayoi Kusama’s infinity rooms (Biedenbender’s in a field of stars), and an assertion of identity through Bollywood melodies and American pop sensibilities (Shekhar’s Don’t Beat a Word). By showcasing commissioned music by five living composers, Khemia Ensemble demonstrates their commitment to reflecting broader perspectives in contemporary classical chamber music.

10 emerging composers assemble and offer insight into our societal world through music on IN TANDEM from violinist Lucia Lin. Each work featured on this album represents a social cause close to its composer’s heart, commenting on inequality and breaking down barriers by building social awareness. Orchestrated in intimate duo settings, Lin’s virtuosic violin playing is complemented by a variety of selected string, percussion, piano, and vocal performers, each offering a fresh ingredient to a diverse and conversation-igniting program.

2020 was a year with unprecedented emotional, mental, physical, and sociological effects. During that time, HOCKET conceived this project to figure out how to make music together, make sense of what was happening in the world, and to provide an artistic and musical outlet for the new music community to express themselves.

#What2020SoundsLike is a project of miniature commissions with a quick turnaround time. There was so much to process during 2020 on a day-to-day basis that #What2020SoundsLike was created as a platform for composers to voice their responses. HOCKET commissioned 50 composers to write new works which they recorded into performance videos. These performances were released on social media and then they were re-recorded at the end for this album.

#What2020SoundsLike has been generously supported by John Bierbusse.

credits

released February 11, 2022

Performed by HOCKET (Sarah Gibson and Thomas Kotcheff)
Produced by Sarah Gibson and Thomas Kotcheff
Engineered, Edited, Mixed, and Mastered by Louis Ng (Lenson Productions)

Art Direction and Design by Thomas Kotcheff

Recorded at Thayer Hall at the Colburn School, December 16 - 18, 2020

license

all rights reserved

Pepito, a lonely shelter dog, misses his old family and his old life. Camila and David, young married professionals, are searching for the perfect dog. As the cracks in Camila and David's marriage deepen, Camila and Pepito form an unshakeable bond.

Commissioned by the Washington National Opera at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and first produced at the Kennedy Center during the 2018/19 season.

Nicolas Lell Benavides’ music has been praised for finding “…a way to sketch complete characters in swift sure lines…” (Anne Midgette, Washington Post) and cooking up a “jaunty score [with] touches of cabaret, musical theater and Latin dance.” (Tim Smith, OPERA NEWS). He has worked with groups such as the Washington National Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, Nashville Opera, New Opera West, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Friction Quartet, and Nomad Session.

He was a fellow at the Eighth Blackbird Creative Lab and the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music. Nicolás was the first ever Young Artist Composer in Residence at The Glimmerglass Festival.

Marella Martin Koch is a librettist, playwright, and director from Los Angeles now based in New York City. She received...  more

SopraDuo’s album features “Where Everything is Music” (Track 1) and “For Max and Hannah” (Track 10)

By Steve Horowitz

Featured as conductor

In May 2014 Alice Danielle Hovatter was born. Celebrating, I asked a few talented friends if they would be able to make some "furniture" music in order to christen her nursery. The response was overwhelming! These 14 tracks are a compilation of music made for Alice's room. All proceeds will go directly to those friends that jumped at the opportunity to create beautiful music for little Alice's room.

credits

released February 9, 2015

Special thanks to Samantha Godoy for the album cover artwork

Featured as composer and recording engineer