Tambuco Performs Liquid City, by Gabriela Ortiz

Tambuco Performs Liquid City, by Gabriela Ortiz
Liquid City, first movement of Liquid Borders, for percussion quartet, by Gabriela Ortiz
“Liquid Borders” (Fronteras Líquidas) represents a sonorous reflection of certain consequences both human and quotidian, historic and social, that have been generated by the political (artificial) creation of borders, walls, and territorial divisions which constitute in and of themselves limitations to the freedom of humankind to act and to be in the broadest philosophical sense.
“Liquid City” (Ciudad líquida) alludes to the cultural, social, and economic borders between rural Mexico and the capital, and allude to the geographic borders of Mexico, touching on phenomena from tolerance to the particularly painful community interaction by which Mexicans, Central Americans and U.S. Americans coexist, confronting thus different world views. Musically speaking, In this piece, I chose to elaborate a formal construction model that would allow me to respond to different border concepts like those mentioned above, recognizing at the same time that their components and meanings are always fluid and changing, and that the selfsame cognitive process is an unstable constellation of networks, fusions, and hybrids. The material I used ranges from the most abstract in terms of rational conceptualization to the most auditively concrete, always in constant, organic flux, creating thus variable dimensions of reading. The main idea was to transgress the borders of time and space via a kind of reintegration of musical memory.
Last but not least, the metaphor of a liquid border alludes to the possibility of encountering a multicultural space, one with apparently irreconcilable differences that nonetheless exposes elements of human expression that are commonly translated as communication, tolerance, and understanding, a fundamental challenge that has yet to be met, one without which neither our survival as a future society nor our wellbeing can be guaranteed.

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beautiful