Aruán Ortiz live at Castel San Pietro Terme, April 2025

Flamenco Criollo Ensemble, one of the most ambitious, exciting, and creative flamenco fusion ensembles on the international scene today, releases "Pasos Perdidos por Soleá" (Naurazitro Music 2025), the latest single from Cuban pianist and composer Aruán Ortiz. This powerful track is from a suite of dynamic pieces—the result of two years of intensive research on Moorish melodies that migrated to colonial Cuba via Spain three centuries ago. Featuring musicians and dancers from Cuban, Spanish, Middle Eastern, and North African traditions, this unique ensemble transcends the boundaries of multiple music genres.

Flamenco Criollo Ensemble 

Aruán Ortiz, piano 
George Ziadeh, oud
Martin Melendez, cello
Fernando Favier-Vall Llosera, cajón & percussion
Yomar Amador, Afro-Cuban percussion, voice and palmas
Inor Sotolongo, percussion and palmas
Malika Zarra, voice
Samara Montañez, voice
Susana Orta, voice
Maria Moreno, Flamenco bailaora
Niurka Agüero, Afro-Cuban dancer

Composed by Aruán Ortiz
Lyrics from “Poema del Bongó” by Nicolas Guillén
Recorded live by Koert Berends at Teatro Colosseo during the Torino Jazz Festival on April 26th, 2025
Mixed and Mastered at Estudios Cezanne, Madrid by Javier Monteverde July 30th, 2025 
Cover Art photo: Eric van Nieuwland
Graphic design by Laura Sitkin  
Produced by Aruán Ortiz
Published by Naurazitro Music 

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Pasos Perdidos por Soleá

Pasos perdidos por Soleá

“Je renais de mes cendres”
written and composed by Aruán Ortiz
This is a one-act libretto for my chamber opera,
“Je renais de mes cendres”, set between 1820 (Henry Christophe’s death) and 1821 (Marie-Louise's exile to England).
The opera centers on Marie-Louise’s
inner world and memories, combining
present hardship with past glory and her
essential role in the Haitian Revolution.
Christophe appears as a phantom memory,
not physically present but powerfully alive in her psyche. The Narrator threads time and memory.
The libretto blends French, Haitian Creole,
and poetic ritual language,
with room for musical layering and dramatic minimalism.
Characters:
Marie-Louise Christophe (soprano) Henri Christophe (tenor))
Narrator (bass-baritone)
Ensemble

Je Renais de mes Cendres_ Chamber Opera. Live at Roulette Intermedium (2025)

Piedras (de Ida y Vuelta) commissioned and performed by Contemporary Ensemble IPSE in 2023 at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York City. It unfolds in three mini-movements that probe the paradoxes of time, its accelerations and suspensions, its expansions and contractions, and the simultaneous construction and dissolution of perceived reality. A recurring melodic figure returns with insistent persistence, spawning brief illuminations and interwoven motivic strands as it evolves. Both a formal and temporal experiment, the piece evokes stones rolling and converging: old companions who, after many years, cross paths again, resonating momentarily before continuing their trajectories among other stones that appear and vanish in passing.
Recorded live at The Dimenna Center for Classical Music Norman S. Benzaquen Hall in 2023, and written for flute/piccolo, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, viola, and cello.

Piedras (de Ida y Vuelta) 2023_Live at The Dimenna Center for Classical Music

Grete Skarpeid "Beyond other stories" (Origin Records 2021)
Grete Skarpeid - voice, Aruán Ortiz - piano, Rob Waring - vibes and percussion, Cameron Brown - bass, Gerald Cleaver - drums

Produced by Aruán Ortiz 
Recorded by David Stoller at Samurai Hotel Recording Studio, Astoria, NY on September 26-29, 2018 
Mixed by David Stoller & Aruán Ortiz at Samurai Hotel Recording Studio

Beyond Other Stories

Singing Again

Grete Skarpeid "Beyond other stories" (Origin Records 2021)

Grete Skarpeid - voice, Aruán Ortiz - piano, Rob Waring - vibes and percussion, Cameron Brown - bass, Gerald Cleaver - drums

Produced by Aruán Ortiz 
Recorded by David Stoller at Samurai Hotel Recording Studio, Astoria, NY on September 26-29, 2018 
Mixed by David Stoller & Aruán Ortiz at Samurai Hotel Recording Studio

Stille, stille, stille

Cats In Crete

The music of 2024 Guggenheim Fellow, composer, and pianist Aruán Ortiz dives across multiple musical contexts, as his continuous research leads him to write for chamber ensembles, orchestras, dance companies, and feature films, incorporating contemporary classical music, Cuban-Haitian and Afro-Caribbean rhythms, spontaneous composition, and improvised music in his works. He has recently received prestigious accolades, including the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship in Music Composition from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2025) and the Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition (2024).

Naurazitro Music Productions

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