ZARABANDA VARIATIONS

KEIR GOGWILT, composer and violinist

EDGAR GARCIA*, poet

VICENTE ATRIA*, composer
CHRISTOPHER OTTO*, violinist
IVA CASIAN-LAKOS*, cellist
CARRIE FREY*, violist
WILFRIDO TERRAZAS*, flutist
KYLE MOTL*, bass
ALEC GOLDFARB*, guitarist
JONNY ALLEN, percussionist
MARIANA FLORES BUCIO*, vocalist

Conceived by performer, composer, and AMOC* member Keir GoGwilt, Zarabanda Variations brings together a group of visionary composers, improvisers, and performers, inspired by musical histories of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century New Spain, or present-day Mexico and the United States. Over the course of the performance, the familiar tonalities and harmonies of early Baroque music are warped into contemporary and futuristic soundscapes.

The zarabanda is a dance with possibly Spanish, pre-Columbian American, and Arab origins, a plausible etymology from the Bantu nsala-banda, which eventually transformed into a courtly European Baroque dance. This performance sounds the archival gaps of early American music, creating a surprising and vibrant synthesis of European and Latin Baroque, folk, and contemporary musical traditions