Lloica Czackis mezzo-soprano
Nicolás Bricht flute
Pavlos Carvalho cello
Andrew Quartermain piano

---

Enrique Sánchez de Fuentes	Cuba
Alberto Williams	Canciones Incaicas
Andrés Sas	Seis cantos indios del Perú (selection)
Maurice Ravel	Chansons Madécasses
Julio Viera	Canti d’Amore *
Carlos Guastavino	Donde habite el olvido
Juan José Castro	Vidala
Heitor Villa-Lobos	Adeus Êma
Oscar Lorenzo Fernândez	Essa negra fulô

Biographies

Nicolás Bricht was born in Buenos Aires in 1971. He studied at Guildhall School of Music & Drama and graduated with a first class degree. His teachers were Averil Williams, Philippa Davies and Paul Edmund-Davies. Since graduating Nicolás has freelanced with orchestras such as the London Philharmonic, Royal Opera House Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Bornemouth Symphony. Nicolas has also played chamber music concerts in the UK, Spain, Germany, Japan and Argentina.

Pavlos Carvalho started learning the cello at the age of five with his father, Santiago. He later studied with Stefan Popov at the Guildhall, Steven Doane at the Royal College and is currently assistant to Jerome Pernoo at the Royal College, with whom he also studied. Pavlos holds a degree in Classics, obtained in King’s College before he studied music. He then went to the Royal College supported by Constant and Kit Lambert and Countess of Muster Trust scholarships, where he achieved his Advance Performance Diploma with distinction, and he won several prizes there. Pavlos performs regularly in a duo with Andrew Quartermain, with his piano trio Belle Epoque and also the London Philharmonic Chamber Ensemble, with whom he recently performed Schubert’s String Quintet. He has also appeared as concerto soloist with orchestras around the country, including performances of works by Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Lalo, Elgar and Haydn. Future performances include a recital in the Purcell Room with Andrew Quartermain.

Lloica Czackis was born in Germany and lived in Venezuela and Argentina. She completed studies at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, having gained a British Council scholarship to study under Vera Rosza and now under David Pollard. In Buenos Aires she studied Choral Conducting and Singing with Ana Sirulnik. Lloica has performed a wide range of music from the Renaissance until the present. As a regular interpreter of contemporary music, she has premiered works of composers such as Yuko Katori and Mario Lorenzo. Concert performances include Debussy’s La Demoiselle Élue and Bach’s St John’s Passion. In opera, she was 'Columba' in Quentin Thomas’ Il Giardino degli Ucelli and she toured the USA with London City Opera’s production of Carmen. Lloica enjoys giving recitals on a particular theme, combining the classical repertoire with folksongs, tango and jazz.  

Andrew Quartermain read music at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he was a choral scholar. He then studied with Paul Roberts on the Advanced Course at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, supported by scholarships from the Worshipful Company of Cutlers and the Lawrence Atwell Trust. He was also a senior exhibitioner at the Royal College of Music, Masters Course, with Andrew Ball.  Andrew has a busy concert schedule as a solo pianist and chamber musician, and performs in duo partnerships with instrumentalists and singers from around the world. He gave his first performance on BBC Radio 3 as part of the Young Artist’s Forum. He has worked in masterclasses at the Britten-Pears School and the International Musician’s Seminar at Prussia Cove.  Andrew is a tutor at Pro-Corda, the National School for Young Concert Players.

Programme notes

The musical development in Latin America at the end of the 19th century indicated a concern with local and folk traditions as a reaction to previous trends, derived almost exclusively from European practices. Composers started to search their own musical heritage for self-assertion, applying those folk elements to the diverse aesthetic forms of modern European currents. This merging process was accelerated by the rapid rise of the middle class and increased participation of the native sectors of the society. As a result, Latin America experienced the collected phenomenon of musical nationalism.

Modesta Bor was born in 1926 in the Venezuelan island of Margarita. She studied composition in her home country and at the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire in Moscow. Her catalogue ranges from songs to orchestral pieces. Tonight’s songs use rhythms and the colloquial language of Venezuela. The first two pieces reflect everyday life in the city, while the Lullaby… is a tribute to Cuban nursing songs.

The climate in the initial period of the Cuban Republic, from 1920 to 1940, inspired artists to research their own popular heritage. This interest, opposed to the influence of European artistic tendencies, originated passionate debates of nationalism against cosmopolitism. In this context emerged Enrique Sánchez de Fuentes (1874-1944). His music brings traditional forms of Hispanic origin into the romantic style and his use of the Habanera rhythm in particular gained him great fame.

Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) is the most representative figure of Brazilian academic music of the first half of the 20th century, and a peer with the most prominent European composers of his time. In his unique style, he created recital songs using the folk traditions of his country. Following the steps of Villa-Lobos, Brazil produced outstanding figures such as Oscar Lorenzo Fernândez (1897-1948). He studied piano and composition in his native Rio de Janeiro and was the founder of several music institutions. Of a large number of orchestral pieces, several of his works have been performed in Brazil under the baton of Villa-Lobos.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, composers were attracted to exotic realms. The Paris premiere of the Songs of Madagascar by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) set off a scandal, on the grounds that its anti-imperialistic view was unpatriotic. The poems were published by Evariste de Parny, who claimed to have translated them from Madagascan songs, which was but a poetic license. The two outer songs are expressively erotic in character, while the middle song is more dramatic in its hinting at the evil effects of the "white men" who bring death and destruction to the exotic and distant land.

In the 1880s Argentina saw the end of the mandate of Juan Manuel de Rosas, who instigated the Campaign of the desert that wiped out most of its native population. As international immigrants were welcomed to these deserted lands, there was a climate of cosmopolitan euphoria as well as concerns with the Argentinian cultural identity. Carlos López Buchardo (1881-1948) and Alberto Williams (1862-1952) belonged to this generation of artists that turned to their national folk traditions. Williams studied composition in the Paris Conservatoire and under Cesar Frank. Later he founded the Buenos Aires Music Conservatoire. His Inca Songs are an example of his interest in the traditional music of a fellow South-American nation. This period was also influenced by the French academicism, which inspired the edification of the Teatro Colón. Within this context, composers like Alberto Ginastera and Carlos Guastavino (1914-2000) came to the forth, developing an individual style that reflected the varied scope of tendencies of the time. Guastavino, whose work is often characterised by their simple traditional character, is represented tonight with a rather introspective piece. As the nationalistic tendencies started to be abandoned, a new generation emerged of musicians free from any need of recover their musical heritage. Their stylistic developments succeeded in putting Latin America on the map of world contemporary music by the early 1960s. One of these composers is Argentinian Julio Viera (b.1945). He has written pieces for electroacoustic media, as well as chamber and symphonic works.

Andrés Sas (1900-1967) was born in France and after studying composition and violin in Brussels and Paris he started a solo career in Europe. As a renowned teacher he gained a post at the Alcedo Music Academy in Lima, where he lived for the rest of his life. He founded there a new music academy and started researching Peruvian music. His later compositions captured the spirit of Indo-Peruvian music, as is evidenced in tonight’s two songs. Their authentic character is enhanced by the use of Quechua, the Andean language that has survived since the times of the Inca Empire until today.