Emilio Magni

A signal moment in the arrival of Italian music on Spanish soil came in the summer of 1708 when Antonio Caldara, finding his opportunities for providing dramatic works for the opera-loving Duke of Mantua limited by the War of the Spanish Succession, headed off to Barcelona to take on acommission for putting on an operatic work from Archduke Charles (“Carlos III”), who was preparing his own wedding festivities at the court he had established in order to contend for the Spanish throne.

Ritmo, Tribute to Chick Corea was recorded live back in July 2021 at the ADDA Auditorium in Alicante (Spain) during the FIJAZZ Festival. Conceived and produced by conductor/drummer Josep Vicent, ADDA Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director, with arrangements by Argentinian Latin Grammy Award Winner pianist and composer Emilio Solla, RITMO is a celebration of Chick Corea’s music and its tremendous influence in contemporary Jazz and its fusion with Latin music.

Emilio Aragón conducts the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra (performing the classical part) together with three Cuban percussionists and Alain Pérez on the double bass. The challenge is to integrate Afro-Cuban rhythms into a classical context such as the Brandenburg concerts, for which Alain Pérez replaces the Bach basso continuo, typical of the Baroque, with the Cuban tumbao bassoon, giving adequate space for percussion, such as the guaguancó, conga, danzón, contradanza, son, bolero… and which could feel comfortable around violins.

The first disc from El Concierto Español, the orchestra founded by the violinist Emilio Moreno (who is both a founding member of Frans Brüggen’s Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and a great champion of Spanish music) is dedicated to one of the most important composers of the 18th century in Spain, Francisco Corselli. Of Italian origin, Corselli spent a considerable part of his career working for the Spanish court, to which he brought the opera seria which was enjoying so much success elsewhere in Europe at the time.