The Barcelona Art Orchestra has created something remarkably cohesive from four distinct compositional voices.
Miel Music
Miguel Zenón – alto saxophone; Barcelona Art Orchestra – each movement has been composed by one of the orchestra’s artistic directors — Néstor Giménez, Lluc Casares, Joan Vidal and Lluís Vidal
Four composers, one orchestra, one soloist. It sounds like four different conversations waiting to happen. Instead, Expressions – Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra unfolds as a single journey. Each movement bears the stamp of one of the Barcelona Art Orchestra’s artistic directors, while Miguel Zenón moves easily from one musical landscape to the next. The orchestra can swell until it feels almost overwhelming, but his alto never disappears inside it. It catches the current, changes its direction, and draws the music forward.
“Silenci / Xiscle” begins almost cautiously, delicate piano figures and restless guitar lines circling one another while the orchestra appears in fragments rather than declarations. The music comes in waves, sometimes suggesting the outlines of chamber music before darker colors seep into the picture. Zenón enters as another voice in the conversation, answering percussion, provoking the orchestra, then stepping aside to hear the response. A bright trumpet briefly cuts through the gathering clouds before the pulse tightens. By the closing minutes, percussion rises like a wall, the orchestra pushes from every side, and Zenón is soaring above it all with fearless confidence. A lone violin briefly hangs overhead like a shaft of light before the orchestra returns, busy and restless. Rhythmic undertows pull from below as different sections answer one another. Zenón keeps pressing forward. The audience erupts in applause.
The mood shifts with “Canta / Parla.” Where the opening movement often feels unsettled, this one breathes a little easier. The orchestra moves in broad, fluid unison lines with a subtle rock edge, while Zenón seems to swirl out of the ensemble, his lyrical phrasing floating above it. Even when a trombone suddenly muscles into the foreground or the guitar leans toward a funkier groove, the music finds its way back to the quieter elegance of the opening.
“Xiuxiueig / Esglai” opens with fluttering orchestral textures before a heavy walking rhythm takes hold. A lone piano figure hints at “Peter Gunn,” giving the movement the atmosphere of a lost Henry Mancini score. Zenón moves through it with effortless cool until the edges begin to roughen, his lines growing more jagged. Just as that tension settles in, the music changes direction. Everything slows. The guitar surfaces with a few delicate phrases before the piano answers, the two briefly trading ideas while Zenón relaxes into a more lyrical voice. Then, almost without warning, that heavy walking rhythm returns, sounding remarkably like it did at the beginning.
“Lament / Crit” closes the work with perhaps its richest dialogue. The orchestra sighs and murmurs while Zenón answers with unhurried, luminous phrases, adapting effortlessly as the music shifts beneath him. Ideas arrive, dissolve, and return in altered form. Trumpet flurries drift through the swirling orchestra, threatening to take over before disappearing again. The guitar surfaces with another of its brief, colorful interjections. One musical idea gives way to another, and Zenón seems to adapt instinctively to each new mood.
The Barcelona Art Orchestra has created something remarkably cohesive from four distinct compositional voices. Zenón proves to be the ideal traveling companion. Serious music doesn’t have to be austere. Expressions is proof of that.
