Stunning performance by the composer and soloist Edmar Castañeda. He is inventing his own genre of contemporary music, fusing jazz and traditional Colombian rhythms with his own flavor of humanness. I played this piece recently with the New Jersey Youth Symphony, and it was an incredible experience that stretched my definition of what music can be. I'm so grateful to have gotten to meet and work with this phenomenon of a person.
This piece references Colombian folk dancing, where certain sounds correspond to dance steps. "Bordones," the title of the piece, refers to the lowest few strings on the llanera harp. Listen for the sounds of the longest strings on the harp and imagine what kind of movement might correspond.
Edmar actually invented the harp he plays! Take a close look at the levers on the top of the harp and how he integrates technically complex playing with the complexity of the instrument itself. Learn more about Edmar.
