The Washington Post
March 18, 2005
Aguava New Music Studio Amanda Squitieri and Erin Smith paced, prowled, stomped and tiptoed across the stage of the Library of Congress's Coolidge Auditorium on Wednesday night, communicating wordlessly as they traced their paths, their steps echoing through the hall. At an apparent impasse, soprano Squitieri and mezzo Smith suddenly burst into song, trading short phrases of wordless syllables; other vocalists and instrumentalists soon joined them from perches all over the auditorium, similar phrases forming new patterns in space and time.
This was the brilliant Aguava New Music Studio, with guests Squitieri and Smith performing Aurelio de la Vega's "El Laberinto Magico" under the musical direction of Carmen Helena Tellez and the stage direction of Chia Patino to open an evening of chamber music by Latin American composers. The score of "El Laberinto Magico" (thoughtfully printed in the program notes) is a maze of crisscrossing staves that asks the performers to find a way out; Aguava chose a path that proved immersive and thrilling.
De la Vega was additionally represented by "Variacion del Recuerdo" in a world-premiere arrangement for singers and instrumental ensemble, which drew on Cuban influences in its eccentric yet comfortable harmonies. Cuban elements also showed up in Lorenz's "Piedra en la Piedra" ("Stone on Stone") for flute, marimba and vibraphone, as a big clave rhythm helped propel an otherwise overly schematic contrast of the concepts of segregation and integration.
After Joe Galvin's fiery percussion solo in "The Warriors," a piece from the Santeria tradition, Aguava presented a modern interpretation of that tradition: "Batey," a collaboration between composer Tania Leon and jazz pianist Michel Camilo, whose nuanced choral writing and deft deployment of a vast battery of percussion created a sustained ecstatic atmosphere.
-- Andrew Lindemann Malone