1 Leggiero

Gravitações for orchestra

Rebekah Heller, bassoon
Tzufeng Liu, piano
Live Recording, 2016, University of New Mexico

NOTE: This piece is also available also at TNC Recordings with Janis McKay, Bassoon; Carolyn Grossmann, piano.

Se Habia Extinguido en Nosotros una Claridad II

A 2008 interview with pianist Enrico Elisi regarding Tres Piezas. Performance excerpts by Carolyn Grossmann

Enrico Elisi - Official Blog and Podcast

Interview with Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann

commissioned and performed by Ensemble cross.art Stuttgart
Celine Papion, cello
Junko Yamamoto, piano
Oliver Frick, electronics

t-k-s-b

Klangforum Wien
Pharos International Contemporary Music Festival
Nicosia, Cyprus, October 2018

Siray III - Concentric Squares

Aspen Sinfonia, Josep Caballé-Domenech, conductor
Recorded at Benedict Music Tent, Aspen Music Festival, 2007

Pasiphae, for orchestra

A three-movement piece for solo violin, La Ricerca della Spiritualità Trascendente, deals with the subject of spirituality and even symbolizes an open-ended journey in search for inner growth. The violin is my own instrument and the one I am inclined to write my most intimate music for. The word Ricerca holds in itself a wonderfully fortunate double meaning. Ricerca, as related to my own spiritual search, has been inspired by readings from such works as St. Augustine’s Confessions. Then there is, of course, the musical term ricerca or ricercare, which represents a musical composition based on the imitation of a subject, the precursor to the fugue. Both connotations of ricerca are present in my solo violin work. The piece is a journey in itself. The first movement, which I consider an initial reflection, evokes a feeling of expectation and awakening and unveils thematic material that will be treated in a cyclic manner throughout the whole composition. The second movement, “Divergenza,” a fast moto perpetuo that owes much to the music of the 19th-century virtuoso violinists-composers, it's where the reflective mood is taken over by a Promethean ethos. The third movement, “Ricerca II,” is both inner-looking and, again, declamatory. After challenging the performer’s technical skills to an extreme limit, the music settles, for the first time, into a steady pulse, a tempus perfectum (3/4), a few bars before the end.

Ricerca II

Ricerca

Divergenza

Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann's music has been performed throughout the United States, Latin America and Europe by ensembles such as the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, São Paulo Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá, Peruvian National Symphony, New England Philharmonic, Aspen Sinfonia, Kiev Camerata, Boston Musica Viva, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Da Capo Chamber Players, Pierrot Lunaire Ensemble Wien®, Seattle Chamber Players, Talea Ensemble, ALEA III and the Borromeo, Amernet and JACK quartets. He was born in Peru in 1973. During Peru’s violent war against terrorist movements ‘Shining Path’ and MRTA in the 1980s, Jorge’s family immigrated to Brazil, where he was able to continue his musical studies in violin and composition. Upon his graduation with a degree in violin performance from Faculdade Santa Marcelina, he decided to focus entirely on composing. In 1998, he moved to Miami enrolling as a graduate student at Florida International University, where he received a master’s degree in composition. In 2000, he moved to Boston to study with John Harbison and Lukas Foss at Boston University, where he earned a  doctorate in composition in 2004.  His works are deeply rooted in the Western music tradition, but also mirror his Latin American background. His awards include a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship, Fromm Music Foundation Commission, the Aaron Copland Award, Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship, Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a fellowship from Vitae - Associação de Apoio à Cultura (Brazil).  He has been in residence at the Copland House, MacDowell Colony and Atlantic Center for the Arts. His orchestral work Pasiphaë has been a recipient of the Jacob Druckman Award from the Aspen Music Festival, a winner of the New England Philharmonic Call for Scores. He has also received grants from the American Music Center, St. Botolph Club Foundation, Meet the Composer and the Nevada Arts Council. His guest-composer appearances include Festival Internacional de Chihuahua, Mexico; Festival Internacional de Música Clásica Contemporánea in Lima, Peru (where he is a regular guest); Festival of the Arts in Colorado Springs, “Musical Premieres of the Season” in Kiev,  New Music Miami-ISCM, Proyecto “Puentes” in Valencia, Spain and SLAM, Seattle Latin American Music Festival, where he was the composer-in-residence for 2008. He periodically presents clinics at institutions in the U.S. and abroad, most recently having been invited to deliver lectures and give masterclasses at the Conservatorio Superior de Música in Valencia, National Conservatory in Lima, Peru and Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul. Recent commissions include the Society for New Music, Nevada Music Teachers Association, ALEA III, and Henderson Symphony Orchestra.  He is currently associate professor of music composition at Ithaca College.

J.Villavicencio Grossmann

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