De La Torre - Blue Samba Duo Powers

• Miguel del Aguila (b. 1957): Head for the Exit, Op. 137, for Piano Four-Hands:
• 1 Aguila: Head for the Exit, Op. 137, for Piano Four-Hands 04:05
• Pianola Rebelde, Op. 127b, for Piano Four-Hands:
• 2 Aguila: Pianola Rebelde, Op. 127b, for Piano Four-Hands 09:09
• Charango Capriccioso, Op. 90a, for Piano Four-Hands and String Quintet:
• 3 Aguila: Charango Capriccioso, Op. 90a, for Piano Four-Hands and String Quintet 10:23
• Blue Samba, Op. 139, for Piano Four-Hands:
• 4 Aguila: Blue Samba, Op. 139, for Piano Four-Hands 11:19
• Music in a Bottle, Op. 67, for Piano Solo:
• 5 Aguila: Music in a Bottle, Op. 67, for Piano Solo 09:39
• Malambo, Op. 115g, for Piano Four-Hands:
• 6 Aguila: Malambo, Op. 115g, for Piano Four-Hands 12:04
• Conga, Op. 39, for Piano Solo:
• 7 Aguila: Conga, Op. 39, for Piano Solo 10:24
• Total Runtime 01:07:03

Info for De La Torre - Blue Samba

Blue Samba gathers music for piano four-hands by Miguel del Aguila, performed by Duo Powers-de la Torre (Lark Powers and Ricardo de la Torre). The programme spans some thirty years of the composer’s output and includes three world-premiere recordings. Influences from del Aguila’s native Uruguay and neighbouring Argentina run through his catalogue alongside echoes of the music of the Antilles, Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia, with rhythm as the organising principle.

The album grew out of Head for the Exit (2023), a short piece the duo commissioned as an encore or programme closer. Pianola Rebelde portrays an old player piano that rebels against its owner and begins to make its own music. The title work, Blue Samba (2024), draws on the second and third movements of del Aguila’s Concierto con Brio for oboe, clarinet and orchestra, moving from jazzy harmonies and swung rhythms to a samba built on an ostinato mostly in 13/16. In Charango Capriccioso (2006) the duo is joined by a string quintet for a journey to the Andes and the sound of the charango, while Malambo (2016) follows an Argentine gaucho in a village deep in the Pampas. Each pianist also plays a solo work: Ricardo de la Torre plays Music in a Bottle (1999) and Lark Powers plays Conga (1993), the oldest piece on the album.

Lark Powers, piano
Ricardo de la Torre, piano

Lark Powers & Ricardo de la Torre
Characterized by their creative programming and the drive and lyricism in their music making, Duo Powers-de la Torre has appeared on a variety of North American and European stages. Some of the festivals and concert series on which they have taken part include Classical Concerts at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, California; El Arte del piano at Mexico City’s Palace of Fine Arts; Passion Piano at the Bibliothèque de Dinan in France; Instituto Cervantes in Vienna; the International Festival of Spanish Keyboard Music in Almería; and the Viernes de Musikeon concert series in Valencia, Spain, Encuentro de pianistas Costa Rica, and the Bainbridge Island Symphony Orchestra in their home state of Washington. The duo was a finalist at the United States International Duo Piano Competition in Colorado Springs and obtained a Silver Award at the first international competition of the Carles & Sofía Foundation of Spain. They have been heard live on Seattle’s Classical KING and Mexico City’s Opus 94 radio stations.

Often exploring lesser-known sides of the two-piano and four-hands repertoire, the duo also collaborates with living composers commissioning and premiering works by composers from throughout the Americas including Juan Pablo Contreras, Leonardo Coral, Moisès Bertran and Miguel del Aguila, with whom they have forged an especially close relationship culminating in their debut album Blue Samba on the Odradek label.

Lark Powers, a California native, and Ricardo de la Torre, a Mexico City native, are in demand as performers and pedagogues and are frequently invited to sit on competition juries in the American Pacific Northwest region. Jointly and individually, they have presented at numerous local, regional, national, and international conferences. They are on faculty at Pacific Lutheran University and the Community Music Program at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington.

Partners in music as well as in life, they individually hold degrees from the University of the Pacific, Escuela Superior de Música (Mexico City), Conservatoire municipal Hector Berlioz in Paris, the Peabody Institute, Indiana University, and the University of Colorado Boulder, where they met during their doctoral studies. As a duo, they have been coached by pianists Albert Atenelle, David Korevaar, and Andrew Cooperstock.

This album contains no booklet.