Two new works by the Cuban composer Magaly Ruiz

We are very happy to welcome the noted Cuban composer, Magaly Ruiz to our roster of composers. Ms. Ruiz at the Instituto Superior de Arte de La Habana where she was later named as a professor. Her works have been performed all over the world and she is cited in the New Grove, as well as in the «Diccionario Iberoamericano de la Música».

Magaly Ruiz is especially influenced by Cuban popular music and many of her works use forms such as the Son, the Habanera and other dance forms. She uses extended tonal vocabulary, which she combines with extended techniques (flutter-tonguing, quarter-tones, glissandi etc) to create a style which is at once modern and linked with tradition.

Her work "Danzon" for Solo Tenor Saxophone was commissioned by the Adkins-Chiti Donne in Musica foundation for the 1998 Donne in Musica Festival in Fiuggi, Italy. I had the honor of performing the première of this work there, which I prepared with Ms. Ruiz. So, I am especially proud that this work is now in our catalog.

The other work is entitled "Preludio y Fuga" and is scored for SATB Saxophone Quartet The work is also strongly marked by the influence of Cuban popular music. The "Fugue" section is closer in form to an invention, rather than a formal "school" fugue, but uses a highly contrapuntal texture with lots of interest for all four instruments.

Both works are available in our Saxophone music catalog

Carson Cooman's Quintet for Bassoon and Strings

We have just published Carson Cooman's Quintet for Bassoon and Strings, which is an eleven minute for Bassoon and String Quartet.

From the Composer's notes :

Quintet for Bassoon and Strings (2005–08) was commissioned by The Commission Project
and is dedicated to Klaus Heymann, in tribute for his invigoration of the classical recording industry and his enthusiastic support for the composers of our time.

The original conception for the work was devised during an extremely foggy week on
Nantucket Island, Massachusetts in the summer of 2005. It is music deeply connected to the ocean landscape. Throughout the work, the strings often present a fog-like backdrop, through which the bassoon’s color emerges like a lighthouse beacon—lyrical and flexible.

The work opens with a series of interlocking, nebulous figurations in the strings that gradually build in intensity. The bassoon unfolds the work’s basic melodic material in a free solo that also increases in intensity. At the point of climax, the tempo suddenly slows dramatically, and a tender, lyrical cantilena emerges. As this music dissolves, a bouncy and energetic music takes the foreground. It climaxes in a bassoon cadenza. Though the bassoon has played the leader throughout, this is the first time it is heard unaccompanied. A brief,
but vigorous afterglow recalls the opening of the work. The final section emerges out of it: a series of high, distant harmonics (perhaps harbor buoys) in the strings through which the bassoon sings a final song.

This work and other works for Bassoon can be found in ourcatalog of music for doublereed instruments.