Angels of Darkness and Dawn
1.) Los Angeles Times Music Review:
“ Angels soars above Mexican works on Pacific Symphony bill”
“Ana Lara’s Angels of Darkness and Dawn soars above other works on an all- Mexican program.”
“Lara’s Angels are inevitably full of color.”
“Darkness begins with the ancient Earth opening its mouth and intoning a primal, indescribable, aaaaaaaaaaah. The sound come from the depths of the orchestra, like a prelude to an Inca Das Rheingold”
“There’s no sound like it. Joseph Horowitz, the festival’s host and artistic advisor, called Lara’s score, apocalyptic. (...) To me, this is not the sound of total destruction but global birth”
“Lara seems to go stylistically form Wagner’s Rhine to Respighi’s Pines of Rome, an Inca Rhine leading to an Inca Catacomb.”
"After 15 minutes with two of Lara's angels, the music that went before seemed like it had happened long ago and on a planet far away."
Nombre de la pieza: “Angels of Darkness and Dawn”
Titulo: “ Angels soars above Mexican works on Pacific Symphony bill”
Nombre del medio: Los Angeles Times Music Review
Nombre del autor: Mark Swed
fecha: 28 de abril, 2007
2.) The Orange County Register:
“Two movements of a larger work, revealed Lara as a major original voice”.
“The two pieces, completely different in mood (and recognizable as Mexican not at all), nevertheless use similar means: long sustained notes and chords, floating, slowly developing arpeggios and merging sound masses. This music moves along magically, like dangerous fog and twinkling ether. By all means, we must hear the entire work”.
Nombre de la pieza:”Angel of Darkness” “Angel of Dawn”
Nombre del medio: The Orange County Register
Nombre del autor: Timothy Mangan
fecha: 27 de abril, 2007
3.) ConcertoNet.com:
"In another great discovery of the festival, Ana Lara’s magnificent 'Angels of Darkness and Dawn' opened with an explosion, almost literally in the concussive depth and weight of the bass. Although her orchestral tone poem had the nearly the profundity of Mahler and the breadth and color of Debussy’s “La Mer,” she used a technique of scratchy slides in the string section that was all her own. And although there are many phenomenal young composers working today, Ana Lara is herself a major find, a musician gifted with an imagination of symphonic proportions. “Angels of Light and Darkness” may someday make many attractive contemporary pieces seem mere trickery."
Nombre de la pieza: Angels of Darkness and Dawn
Nombre del autor: Thomas Aujero Small
Nombre del medio: ConcertoNet.com
fecha: no especifica
4.) The Orange County Register:
“I think it’s a very direct piece, she says. Harmonically, it’s very simple and it’s mainly about color again. I wanted to explore in that piece how with very simple things-simple rhythms, simple notes, simple harmony- you could make a wonderful world by using the orchestra.”
Nombre de la pieza: Angels of Darkness and Dawn, Canticum Sacrum, Hacia la noche.
Nombre del medio: The Orange County Register
Nombre del autor: Timothy Mangan
Fecha: 15 de abril, 2007
Angels of Flame and Ice
1.) Classical Newsletter:
“A primal, indescribable Aaaaaaaaaah”
“A major and original voice”
“This music moves along magically, like dangerous fog and twinkling ether. By all means, we must hear the entire work”
Nombre de la pieza: Angels of Flame and Ice
Nombre del medio: Classical Newsletter, www.peermusical.com
Nombre del Autor: Mark Swed
fecha: 8 de junio 2007
2.) The Spokesman- Review:
“‘Angeles de Llama y Hielo’ (‘Angels of Fire and Ice’), composed in 1994 by Mexican composer Ana Lara seems at first to be at odds with the other pieces on the program, since neither its composer nor its subject has a direct connection with any current sect, nationality or dispute. In fact, that is exactly the point. Lara’s powerful evocation of four Angels (Darkness, Dawn, Light and Sunset) symbolizes stages in a cycle that underlies all of human life. The music thus puts us in touch with forces that dwarf mankind’s petty quarrels.“
“Avoiding any national or ethnic traits, Lara imagines huge orchestral sonorities, representing the inexorable, endlessly repeating cycles which are her subject. Starting with a single, low pitch in the brass and strings, the piece depicts the gathering of energy through striking combinations of swooping glissandi in strings and harp, twittering woodwinds, booming percussion and nattering figurations in the brass. When it finally subsided into silence, one felt a glimpse had been granted behind the curtain of creation.“
Nombre de la pieza: Angels of Fire and Ice
Nombre del medio: The Spokesman Review
Nombre del autor: Larry Lapidus
Fecha: 30 de marzo 2015
Darkness Visible
1.) Sequenza 21:
”If applause can be trusted, the audience favorite was the fifth work, “Darkness
Visible” (1998-1999) by Ana Lara. Her work (for violin, viola, cello, bass, flute, clarinet, piano, percussion). This is accessible, but moody — quite appealing to an audience hearing it for the first time. Her web site gives eight mp3 clips, all of other works but bearing a compositional relationship to what we heard last night. Amazon has only one composition of hers, on a multi-composer CD. One of her compositions was performed by our local Long Beach, but her works deserve much more exposure.”
Nombre de la pieza: “Darkness visible”
Título: Last Night in L.A.: New Voices
Nombre del medio: Sequenza 21
Nombre del autor: Jerry Z
fecha: 20 de febrero del 2007
2.) The LA Times:
“Ana Lara, from Mexico City, took her inspiration for "Darkness Visible" from William Styron's "Memoir of Madness." Her sounds for eight players were dark, low, rumbling. A primeval character might be identified, especially with percussion and growling bass clarinet; a brightness and freshness spoke of depression transcended.
Nombre de la pieza: Darkness visible
Nombre del medio: LA Times
Nombre del autor: Mark Swed
fecha: 21 de febrero del 2007
Dos Visiones:
1.) LA Times Music Review:
“Lara’s Mexican street procession over a pounding pace with traces of mariachi, followed by Maggio’s juxtaposition of unusual effects (percussion shakers, faint women’s voices, strummed piano strings) with snatches of American hymns woven into cinematic cues.”
Nombre de la pieza: “Dos visiones”
Nombre del medio: LA Times Music Review
Nombre del autor: Richard S. Ginell
fecha: Mayo 23, 2005.
2.) Long Beach Press Telegram:
”Dos Visiones was not one of those modern works that vanishes from the repertory after one experimental performance (..) musically expansive, powerful and accessible.”
“Dos Visiones a project three years in the making, proved itself as an attractive work of passionate power and surpassing grace.”
Nombre de la pieza: “Dos visiones”
Nombre del medio: Long Beach Press Telegram
Nombre del Autor: John Farrell
fecha: Mayo 23, 2005
Epitafios y otras muertes:
1.) Chicago Tribune:
“Accessible but not simple-minded, it provided a showcase for Levi Hernandez’s dulcet, mellow baritone”
Nombre de la pieza:”Epitafios y Otras Muertes”
Nombre del medio: Chicago Tribune
Título: Ensembles unite at festival to pay tribute to mix of Latina composers
Nombre del autor: Michael Cameron
fecha: 20 de noviembre, 2007
Sagitario-Capricornio-Acuario
1.) Süddeutsche Zeitung:
“Die Mexikanerin Ana Lara näherte sich in “Sagitario-Capricornio-Acuario”
Nombre de la pieza: ”Sagitario-Capricornio-Acuario”
Título: Sie wankten, die Fundamente elitärer Elfenbein Türme
Nombre del medio: Süddeutsche Zeitung
Nombre del Autor: Sandra Sinsch
fecha: no especifica
Canticum Sacrum
1.) Orange County Press:
“Her ‘Canticum Sacrum,’ originally for a cappella voices and here orchestrated for strings, uses Gregorian chant as its linear basis and a technique called heterophony, in which those lines are played in slightly different versions by the musicians at the same time (here in slight rhythmic displacement from one another) creating soft blurs of melody and harmony that float in and out of focus. The work's solemn progression and religious feeling is reminiscent of Arvo Pärt or Henryk Górecki.”
“ Lara composes in an international style, not instantly recognizable as Mexican. Her Serenata for Wind Quintet and String Quintet (2005) takes its start from Mozart's serenades but brings them into the 21st century. The woodwinds play multiphonics (an extended technique where more than a single note is created by one player); the strings hover, tremble and provide sound effects of their own. The work's six short movements have a lovely directness and simplicity, though; they were written for young musicians, the composer said. They're like little fragments of half-forgotten dreams.”
Nombre de la pieza: “Canticum Sacrum” “ Serenata for Wind Quintet and String Quintet”
Título: Discovering Classical Mexico
Nombre del medio: Orange County City press
Nombre del autor: Timothy Mangan
Fecha: 17 abril, 2007
2.) The Orange County Register:
“I think that… the Gregorian chant is so important because it helps you to meditate and to make you be in contact with yourself and eventually with God. For me, this is the main interest in music, that it really connects me with myself and eventually connects me with other people that have the same spiritual needs as I do.”
Nombre de la pieza: Canticum Sacrum.
Nombre del medio: The Orange County Register
Nombre del autor: Timothy Mangan
Fecha: 15 de abril, 2007
Niebla del Alba
1.) The Journal of Music:
“Ana Lara’s Niebla del alba (‘mist of dawn’) refers to a haiku-like text. Some of the flute and piano conversation seemed standard contemporary fare, but a passage of sustained breathy notes in the upper register stood out; there were flurries of intensity in the closing section too.”
Nombre de la pieza:Niebla del alba
Nombre del medio: The Journal of Music
Nombre del autor: Barra Ó Séaghdha
fecha: Abril 2009
Serenata
1.) Steven Stucky:
“A most inventive piece, by turns mysterious and playful. (But no basset horns after all!) From what I knew before, this piece also seems to contain a lot that is new for you. I, on the other hand, never seem able to surprise myself any more, so I admire you a lot for still going forward. “
Nombre de la pieza: Serenata
Nombre del medio: no especifica
Nombre del autor: Steven Stucky
fecha: 8 de enero del 2006
Hacia la noche
1.) The Orange County Register:
“We’ll hear quite a bit of music by Lara. She studied music in Poland and the U.S. as well with the experimental Mexican composer Mario Lavista (b.1943) and describes her music as international and abstract in style, but subtly Mexican nevertheless”.
“In general, everything that one writes is autobiographical”, she said recently from her home in mexico City. “And I think the country where you are living defines in many ways what you are writing. It has to do not only with the sound you are surrounded by, but also I guess it’s a kind of aesthetic thing, the kinds of things we like as Mexicans, and the music we enjoy listening to.”
“As a mexican, one of the things she especially responds to is color.”
“Mexico is , not today, but normally (full of) sunshine, and it’s always full of colors around us. I guess it has to do a little bit with the way we enjoy the Mexican landscape. I love flowers, for instance, and all my house is full of flowers- so those things really have a lot to do with myself, and that has to do with the music I write.”
“Hacia la noche is all about the color of sound, she says. In the piece she works with the incremental microtones between notes to create a kind of breathing sound.”
Nombre de la pieza: Hacia la noche.
Nombre del medio: The Orange County Register
Nombre del autor: Timothy Mangan
Fecha: 15 de abril, 2007
Aulos
1.) Aulos:
“ The very contemporary and highly innovative Ana Lara, perhaps one of the outstanding women concert music composers of the world in our day.”
“The post-modern pastiche of styles and devices of the late capitalist world find their startling reflection in the appropriation in Lara's music of decidedly European influences by a post-colonial musical mind, as serenely open to new possibilities as to suggest that Mexico's musicians have.”
Título:True art… and a great deal of fun, for serious listeners
Nombre del autor: Joe Aimone
fecha: 28 de julio del 2008
Cake Walk
1.)“Although I was trained as a pianist, I haven’t really written a lot for this instrument. Less probable was to write something for young players learning to play the piano. When Elena Riu asked me to write this piece, I took it as a challenge, specially because R&B is something quite beyond my musical language. I wrote the piece and a friend of mine told me that the rhythm was a cake walk (cake=pastel, walk=caminata). In Mexican Spanish we use very often the diminutive form, so instead of the literal translation: caminata de pastel, I used the Mexican version caminata de pastelito…”
Nombre de la pieza: Cake Walk, Caminata de pastelito.
Estudios Rítmicos
1.)“I wrote my Estudios Rítmicos through various years. Some of them come from scenic inter-artistic works where Tambuco had an important participation. Other studies are the result of a desire to experiment with various instrumental mixtures and work around the concept of rhythm from different angles, always thinking about Tambuco and accepting their teachings and advices. This work is therefore, dedicated to them.”
The three Estudios Rítmicos were premiered by Tambuco in it´s 2007 Home Season Concert in Mexico City.
Valedictus
1.) Long Beach Telegram:
“ The first, "Valedictus," by Lara, was the mournful one. Lara's music was multilayered, mournful yet rich, introspective and passionate, and Reoyo-Pazos matched Diemecke's feeling interpretation. “
Nombre de la pieza: “Valedictus”
Nombre del autor: John Farrel
Nombre del medio: Long Beach Press Telegram
fecha: 13 de octubre, 2003
About Ana Lara
1.) Classical Music Latimes:
“I immediately felt passionately connected to her music, sound and use of the orchestra. Ana is one of the really most unique compositional voices that I’ve discovered in a long time.” St. Clair.
“I have always thought of myself as a composer rather than a Mexican composer. For me, the music I compose is Mexican music because I live here, breathe here. I’m in contact with the musicians here and the public here. That makes my music sound the way it sounds. If I were living in the States or Europe, it would be different.”
“But I also know that other people from different places who listen to my music find something ‘Mexican’ in it. They find something that’s not from any other place that makes my music a little distinct.”
Nombre de la pieza: no especifica
Nombre del Medio: latimes.com
Nombre del autor: Chris Pasles
fecha: 15 de abril 2007
2.) A series of linked discontinuities:
“One of the closest to (Mario Lavista) in terms of extended techniques, non-tonal idioms, and an expressive refinement that beautifully balances exceptional emotional impulses. “
Nombre de la pieza: no especifica
Nombre del medio: A series of linked discontinuities
Título: Reflections on the history of Mexican Music
Nombre del autor: Leonora Saavedra
fecha: no especifica
