Dr. Rafael Guzman Barrios

Meditating on rhythm is a concrete and abstract, academic and wild, introverted and extroverted, traditional and avant-garde, universal and national journey through cuban rhythms. The piano and the recorded samplers are in charge of breaking the comfort zones of the composer, performer and listener, of curtailing hackneyed gestures and mutilating clichés and caribbean folklore that appear only to die trying. From the contradanza and the nineteenth-century dances, to the current rumba and timba, going through the danzón and the Cha cha cha of the 50s, the work does NOT stop to meditate for a long time in any of those genres, it only caresses them, flirts with them and YES meditates as the bird flies on its history and journey. The piano could also remind Bartok and the phrasing of Saumell and/or Cervantes; the extended techniques are applied to its soundboard-box, in what could be called a de-categorized and eclectic leap into the stylistic void. Some of the samplers are real, and others, are the product of the infinite fantasy of technology and the creator; and of course there is no lack of reasons, themes or pretexts that give a certain unity and direction to the discourse. Meditating on rhythm is neither tonal nor atonal, it is not serial or indeterminate, it is not a tribute, but several: to the Cuban piano school (its existence is controversial), to my teachers (academic and empirical), to Cuban popular music and my island.