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03/07/2026
“Emporium”
Aldo López-Gavilán Junco: Emporium for Piano and Orchestra – Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra – Hechizos for Piano
Ricardo Morales (clarinet), Aldo López-Gavilán (piano), Jubal Fulks (guest concertmaster), Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra, Michael Butterman (conductor)
Live recording: Mackey Auditorium Concert Hall, Boulder, Colorado (January 6‑7, 2024) (World Premiere Recording) – 70’32
SACD Hybrid Reference Recordings RR-154SACD – Booklet in English
Be prepared to experience something novel, something rejuvenating, something otherworldly!
Enter the musical genius of Cuban-born Aldo López‑Gavilán whose mixture of classical and jazz persuasions will electrify the listener from the get go. His innate sense of musical fusion emanates from his parents (his father, composer/conductor and his mother, pianist/teacher) as well as his renowned grandfather, the legendary Cuban clarinetist Juan Jorge Junco. One of the strongest assets the composer brings to the table is his sense of improvisational skills. The result is a mélange of stunningly beautiful creations which stimulate the soul, both physically and emotionally.
Back in 2017, Aldo López-Gavilán wrote and premiered his first piano concerto, namely Emporium which graces and introduces this vibrant CD. Aptly named since it was the composer’s objective to “unify the world”. This idée is particularly important to the composer due to his exposure and musical training and performances outside his native Caribbean island. He’s strongly attuned to the capriciously disparate dialogues bantered about between his native Cuba and that of The United States. Invested in a myriad of musical impressions entrées with a perky Baroque-edge during the measures of the “Allegretto spiritoso”. Distant sounds of David Foster and snippets of Marvin Hamlisch bleed to the surface in the opening minutes, yet the design is distinctly pinned to M. López‑Gavilán. Luscious legato and pulsating crescendos re‑emphasize the electrifying designs of the music, well‑heeled in percussive strengths by chimes, snare drum and vibraphone. “Balance” and “structure” prevail with agreeability, akin to the sonata form.
Bracketed in the middle, the unfettered “Liberamente” ushers in an immediacy of tranquility and shamanistic guidance, faintly aligned to Grofé’s “Sunrise” from the Grand Canyon Suite. The tone pensively reveals M. López‑Gavilán’s pensive conversation set alongside the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra’s strings enclaves. The piece reaches into hymnic thoughts, a preamble to the pianist’s tremolo arguments, especially when strengthened by the vibraphone harmonic structures. Where the Cuban’s virtuosic training becomes fully unveiled is in the closing “Presto” with extremely difficult and technical artistry. What particularly broadens the piano’s effects are through the other percussive instruments, particularly the chimes. The conclusive bars of Emporium strongly reach into Rachmaninoff sophistication. A dizzying delight.
The ensuing Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra has strong reminiscences to the composer’s late grandfather, the great Juan Jorge Junco. Paying respectful homage, the opening “Adagio” has a strong, plaintive Copeland quality: somber, reflective, sensitive...searching. Ricardo Morales’ edgy clarinet enclaves remark upon Leonard Bernstein, yet the flair is independently jazzy: both spicy and fruity. The middle portion turns into a quasi tête-à-tête with tutti orchestra. While the “Ballad” forwards in agreeable benevolence, the closing “Allegro” is contrastingly entrenched with a semi‑strident whimsical lining: novel and uncanny, on line with Gershwin with spots of Bernstein, again. M. Morales has some “funtastic” remarks, fluidly moving about on his “licorice stick” with an appetite to appeal to the full‑on inventions of Aldo López‑Gavilán. A spirited musical confluence.
The “power of thought” is, perhaps, the most impressive as one listens to Aldo López‑Gavilán’s solo piano triptych œuvre, Hechizos (literally translated “spells”). This composition is truly mesmerizing. “Mariposas Nocturnas” (“Nocturnal Butterflies”) emphasizes the beauty of these winged‑insects with two‑handed magic: the left hand stoically is grounded in ostinato which sharply contrasts to the “flickering” embellishments placed upon the right hand. M. López‑Gavilán shapes the hypnotic “Hipnosis” with steady, distant oscillations. Deep down we’re subjected to sensations of beauty and ambiguous uncertainty. This segues to the rather sinister ambitions found inside “Conjuros” with its rather devilishly waltz‑like impish arguments which thinly remark upon pockets of Maurice Ravel. This composition’s spell‑binding dynamics are strongly founded and pronounced. One will be funneled into a siphon of mystic bewitchment. Penetratingly trance‑like with an intoxicating and distant appeal.
A “magnet of musical invention” strongly yields to Aldo López‑Gavilán. “Emporium” demonstrates a grand assembly of thought, distinctive in the process with a need to permit “open-mindedness and allowable space”. A fascinating and well‑executed lesson.
Christie Grimstad
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