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.