Marcela Rodríguez
Born in 1951, Marcela Rodríguez belongs to a generation of Mexican and Latin American composers which has distanced itself from the regionalism of the nationalistic music of the 20th century and is trying to get into touch with European and Anglo-American music without sacrificing its search for a Latin American musical identity. Marcela Rodríguez has written works for solo instruments and voices as well as songs, chamber music, symphonies, concertos and operas. Since 1979 she has been writing music for dramas, too, and has worked together with the most eminent Mexican directors. Marcela Rodríguez is unusually well informed in the field of music and uses the resources of the European tradition as well as those of the Latin American one. She studied the guitar under two of its greatest interpreters - the Argentinean Manuel López Ramos and the most important modern composer for the guitar, the Cuban Leo Brouwer. Bothof them made Rodriguez aware of Latin American music and the problem of defining its identity. During a lengthy stay in London, where she completed a course of studying the guitar, she devoted her time mostly to the tradition of European music. Back in Mexico City she continued her studies under the music pedagogue Jesús Estrada and Mario Lavista, the most eminent living Mexican composer.
For more information, visit her website marcelarodriguezr.com
About her piece for the Encuentros project (2009)
"Asilah is a very small town in North Morocco, and where this piece was first conceived. The exploration of modal Arabic scales and its interaction with the Spanish flamenco sonorities (as well as atonality) is the concept behind this work. Both countries have very similar roots in their music, due to the vast influence of Arabic culture in the Spanish Peninsula for so many centuries. I am approaching the Arabic modal scales from the Western/Spanish traditional and contemporary point of view now, North going to South, and not the other way around."