Boosey & Hawkes

Enrico Chapela: Ínguesu travels internationally

(September 2009)

The music of Mexican-born composer Enrico Chapela, who signed with Boosey & Hawkes last year, is continuing to win friends and attract performances and commissions. Proving a favourite on the festival circuit is his orchestral football match, Ínguesu, with performances at Warsaw Autumn last year, and at the Cabrillo and Tanglewood festivals this year, conducted respectively by Krzysztof Urbanski, Marin Alsop and Stefan Asbury.

“Ínguesu orchestrally maps the 1999 FIFA Confederations Cup final, in which Mexico upset Brazil: individual players represented by individual instruments, the structure matching the match’s ebb and flow, the conductor-referee even flashing yellow and red cards. But the exuberance also echoed the piled-up rhythms of Latin American composers like Revueltas and Ginastera.”
Boston Globe

“…a piece of inspired madness by the idiosyncratic Mexican composer Enrico Chapela. Ínguesu is not brain surgery, as new music sometimes is, but Mr. Chapela’s vivid scoring and energetic style-hopping keep it entertaining, even for a listener uninterested in soccer. How the music is meant to convey the final score is unclear, but for the record, it was Mexico 4, Brazil 3.”
New York Times

Recent works by Enrico Chapela include two scores for chamber orchestra. Li Po was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association for the Green Umbrella Series and premiered under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen in April. The Los Angeles Times applauded Chapela for his “compelling instrumental effects” and “exciting visceral rhythms”, while the New York Times reviewer was “swept along by the wash of colours, the sputtering mechanistic energy and the riot of instrumental and amplified sounds”.

Irrational Music, premiered in June by the New Paths Chamber Ensemble in New York conducted by David Alan Miller, is a musical exploration of irrational numbers, but as the reviewer in Sequenza21.com noted “this was in no way indicative of a dry or cerebral surface. On the contrary, Irrational Music pulsates with vibrant energy.”

> Further information on Work: Ínguesu

Photo: Bernd Uhlig

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