Diaspora of Symbols I (Orchestra)

Work commissioned by Eu-Terpe Foundation in association with the Associazione Musicale Bruno Maderna (Forlí – Italy), URBAN Associatione (Sarajevo – Bosnia) and The Orchestra City of Almeria (Spain) and co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union

History has seen many different diasporas and migrations movements around the globe. Every time a group of people moved into a new land, they did it with their cultural traits, art practices, languages, etc. in other words, elements that symbolized their culture, history and traditions which integrated with the local traditions to create something new.

We don’t always realize but many of the mainstream forms of art such as pop, film music, jazz, Latin Cuban music, etc. and also cuisine, interior decoration, architecture, design, language dialects, etc. were new forms of art that developed from many of the several diasporas and migration movements experienced in history.

This work pays homage to the transcendence of such diasporas in the past which gave us some much cultural richness in our current society. It pays particular attention to the diaspora experienced from the the northwest of Spain to South America.

The rich musical culture of Spain has always been a great source of motivation to transform and develop in the works of Marcos Fernandez. In this score, the way in which the animated rhythmic patterns of a 6/8 and 3/4 of the «Muiñeira» and the «Jota» (traditional Spanish dances) respectively evolve gradually towards new rhythmic ideas serve as construction of this work, reflecting a similar development to the cultural and emotional transformation of the Galicians and Asturians who, from their regular life patterns sailed away towards a new life that build a new society at the other side of the Atlantic.