Vicens: Mural
New York City-based, Puerto Rican-born composer, guitarist, and visual artist Gabriel Vicens releases his fourth studio album Mural, a recording devoted to his chamber works. Vicen s continues his musical journey by releasing a record of contemporary classical music including pieces for piano trio, wind quintet, Pierrot ensemble and more; featuring some of today's finest performers of the New York City classical scene. The immersive and mood-inducing music on this record spans a four-year period of creativity and is the first recording to feature concert works by this wonderful artist. Mural explores modern and contemporary trends such as 12-tone serialism, experimentalism, and minimalism and, at the same time, depicts Vicens' individuality as a composer with a distinctive voice that has been constantly expanding throughout the years of his career. "I see the music of this album as both a continuation of all my previous works and something completely different. Though we could classify this repertoire in a different genre and following different traditions, practices, and influences to my previous records, for me it is all connected. My goals are the same when composing any piece of music, which is to create something interesting, beautiful and profound that works as a whole and evokes some kind of emotional, mental, and/or physical response in the listener," says Vicens, a Doctoral graduate from Stony Brook University. Mural is released on the celebrated Milan-based record label, Stradivarius, which specializes in publishing some of today's best recordings of early music and contemporary classical music. The album comprises seven pieces for different types of ensembles recorded at the renowned Bunker Studio in New York City. The first track of the album and title piece, Mural (2021) for clarinet, violin, and piano is performed by clarinetist Raissa Fahlman, violinist Joenne Dumitrascu, and pianist Corinne Penner. Followed by Suenos Ligados (2020) for piano trio, featuring violinist Adrianne Munden-Dixon, cellist Rocio Diaz de Cossio, and pianist Mayumi Tsuchida. The third track of the album, El Matorral (2022) for Pierrot ensemble is performed by Roberta Michel on flute, Raissa Fahlman on clarinet, Joenne Dumitrascu on violin, Wick Simmons on cello, Corinne Penner on piano, John Ling on vibraphone, and conducted by David Bloom. The recording continues with Una Superficie Sin Rostro (2020) for solo piano, featuring Corinne Penner. Adrianne Munden-Dixon returns with Mayumi Tsuchida on the fifth track of the album, Carnal (2019) for violin and piano. The ensemble Nu Quintet appears on the sixth track, Ficcion (2021) for woodwind quintet. The album concludes with La Esfera (2021) for cello and piano performed by cellist Julia Henderson and pianist Mikael Darmanie. Vicens is interested in how his approach to music and painting correlate with each other, in particular, his attentiveness to the two-dimensional flatness of the canvas and how that translates into music. "I create musical compositions with melody, harmony, rhythm, timbre, and register, and every instrument and part of the composition is equally important to me. Everything needs to work together. The same principle applies to my paintings, but with color, form, line, and texture instead of musical elements. I see my paintings as an extension of my music and vice versa. The conceptual processes are incredibly alike," says Vicens. The compositions included in Mural are characterized by their embracement of dissonance, pointillistic textures, large intervallic leaps, gestural complexity, prolonged silences, great dynamic contrasts, and quiet sustained tones. On many occasions it's possible to encounter a ritualistic and mysterious aspect in his music that is distinguished by the way he uses repetition over melodic fragments and harmonic patterns. The influences of Webern and Feldman are perceivable in Vicens' works. Commenting on the evocative repertoire brought together in this album, Tim Rutherford-Johnson remarks in the CD's liner notes, "... although his music is often quite flat in it's surface relations, in it's unfolding over time it admits cracks into that surface, and slow transitions from one color to another." The title of this recording came from Vicens' passion for Roman and Egyptian mural paintings. "I'm fascinated by how Roman and Egyptian frescoes have decayed slowly for centuries and how the cracks and layers of colors have become part of the current stage of the work, creating a complex and atmospheric character. "Music is a reflection of life; it comes from our experiences. We go through cycles and evolve as the years pass. Over time, we get our cracks and layers of colors, just like the frescoes, and from those experiences, we get the energy and the inspiration to write music that communicates something abstractly. Mural is what I have to say at this point of my life; my future cracks and layers will slowly tell what's next." The seven works offered in Mural display Vicens' unique vision and voice as a composer and conveys a pivotal point that stylistically breaks his career free from the confines of a single genre description. The addition of this album to his discography expresses his immense creativity and wide range of skills, displaying how he shapeshifts magnificently across various musical terrains. Finally, the record reveals an idiosyncratic approach that captures his innovative ideas with brilliance and excitement. The album includes a photo-illustrated, 28-page booklet with liner notes by Tim Rutherford-Johnson.