Zerpa Latin American Recording

Zerpa

AEPMS is proud to present a vital recording project with Venezuelan conductor and violinist Simón Ali Zerpa Carballo who will record an album of symphonic Latin-American works at the end of March 2023 with the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra Olomouc and feature works by Latin-American composers and Venezuelan soloists. We are looking for support for this large and important project.

Please support the project with a donation through Paypal which will go directly to this project.

The Project

Simón Ali Zerpa Carballo describes the project:

It is with joy and excitement that I want to share with you the news about my upcoming artistic endeavor.

As a part of my doctoral graduation project, I will be recording an album of symphonic Latin-American works at the end of March, 2023. 

I dedicated almost two years to research and to look for unknown symphonic jewels that could be part of this album. After discovering the three marvelous pieces that have been chosen, I knew I had to work tirelessly in order to make this Latin-American repertoire visible and available to everybody, other musicians and music lovers as well. 

Claudia Calderón, composerThe first step was to find the best musicians and choose great composers that wanted to collaborate with me on this artistic journey, so we could make an excellent recording. As of today, I’ve been able to secure a pallet of fine artists that will record this album next March under my baton and artistic direction: Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra Olomouc; composers Clausia Calderón, Reynaldo Moya, and Ángel Sauce; Mr. Simón Gollo (violinist and recording artist of IBS Classical), and Mr. Leonidas Rondón (internationally acclaimed cuatro player).

Leonidas Rondon The second step was to secure all the technical details, such as a proper hall for recording in the Czech Republic, a team of professional audio engineers and producers, as well as a video recording team to document the sessions.

What started as a graduation project has now become an opportunity to promote magnificent works by Latin-American composers, as well as Venezuelan soloists, and thus, enrich the list of symphonic works that are currently heard in concert halls and music streaming platforms.

The third and more important step now is to fund the project. For this purpose, I’ve partnered with AEPMS (Arts Education and Performance Management Services), so all your donations could be claimed for any tax deduction that you and/or your company are entitled to. All sponsors will be recognized on this website and in all the recording marketing material.

With your generous support you will not only strongly support me on this academic and professional achievement, but also you will support solid actions to promote diversity in classical music and in the arts.  

Please support the project with a donation through Paypal which will go directly to this project.

The Composers

Claudia Calderón, composer
Claudi Calderón, composer

​​​Pianist and composer born in Palmira, Valle del Cauca, Colombia, residing in Venezuela since 1987, in Colombia since 2011 and in Marseille, France since 2021.

After studying music in Cali and Bogotá, she continued in Germany with David Wilde and Diether de la Motte and in Italy with György Sandor, a disciple of Béla Bartók.

A Chamber Music teacher at the Simón Bolívar Conservatory and the Instituto Superior de Estudios Musicales in Caracas for more than 10 years, she has presented solo piano recitals with European and Latin American works, including her own compositions in various countries in Europe, Latin America, and the United States, South Africa and China.

She has developed extensive research on the traditional music of the harp and related instruments of the Joropo from the Plains of Colombia and Venezuela, creating an unprecedented repertoire for piano and traditional accompaniment called "El Piano Llanero", which has been recorded and published in Caracas by the Fundación Bigott in two volumes.
She also recorded a CD with works for solo piano by Colombian composer Pedro Morales Pino for the Banco de la República in Bogotá.
She has been the winner of two artistic residences in Mexico, one in 2004 by the Ministry of Culture of Colombia and another in 2006 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico SRE, creating original symphonic compositions and carrying out a project called "El Piano Xarocho" on traditional music from Veracruz, Colombo-Venezuelan Joropo and its kinship with the Spanish Fandango from the XVIII century, which was recorded on a CD integrating musicians from Mexico, Venezuela and Spain.

Her performances include the Teresa Carreño Theater in Caracas, the Cervantino Festival in Guanajuato, the Palacio de Bellas Artes, Puerta de las Américas and the Zacatecas Festival in Mexico, the Luis Angel Arango Hall and the Mayor Julio Mario Santo Domingo theater in Bogotá, Sala Zitarrosa in Montevideo, Bolívar Hall, City of London Festival and Barbican Center for the Arts in London, Tampa Bay's Festival in Florida, Seattle, Washington, Milwaukee, New York, Chicago World Music Festival, the Maison de l'Amerique Latine in Paris, the University of Praetoria in South Africa and the Latin Passion Festival in Hong Kong.

Her compositions include works for solo piano, chamber music, and symphonic pieces, some of which have been premiered and recorded in Venezuela, Colombia, and Mexico.
Among them are the “Paisaje al Galope Fantástico”, Little Dances of the Pacific and the Sonata for piano, “Sueño de Agbadyá” for symphonic orchestra, the “Galeón Sumergido” for Harp, Flute and Cello trio, “Albores” for percussion quartet , the Suite “Hoyemamb” for small orchestra, the “Revuelta Circular” for cello and piano, “Toccata Xoropo” for piano and orchestra, “Aguadiosa” for pre-Columbian winds, bow strings, marimba and percussion, initiation works for bow strings, music for theater and the Symphonic Joropos Suite.
She has published various articles on the Joropo and lectured for the Historical Harp Society in Amherst, Massachusetts, at the University of Mainz, Germany, at CUNY University in New York, at the University of Granada in Spain, and at the International Institute of Music of the World IIMM in Aubagne, France.

In 2001 she created the Arpamérica Editorial Foundation in Venezuela and in 2009 registered it in Colombia, dedicating herself to the creation of children's and youth orchestras in Colombia, mainly in Villa de Leyva, Boyacá, where she founded the Santa María de Leyva Music School. Later she participated in the creation of the youth symphony orchestra of La Candelaria through the program of the Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra and later founded the children's orchestra of Yopal, Arcos de Casanare.

In 2018 she traveled as accompanying pianist with Colombian dance ensembles to Turkey, Lebanon and Spain. Since 2021 she is living in Marseille, France, where she works as a composer, piano teacher and creator of projects integrating European and traditional Latin American instruments.

Reinaldo Moya, composer
Reinaldo Moya is a graduate of Venezuela’s El Sistema music education system. Through El Sistema, he had access to musical training from an early age and was a founding member of the Simón Bolívar Orchestra touring throughout Europe, North and South America.

He graduated from The Juilliard School with both masters and doctorate degrees, under the tutelage of Samuel Adler and Robert Beaser. He received his Bachelors in Music degree from West Virginia University, where his principal teacher was John Beall.
He is the recipient of the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letter, the 2015 McKnight Composers Fellowship, the Van Lier Fellowship from Meet the Composer and the Aaron Copland Award from the Copland House. In January 2020 he was announced as the winner of the $20,000 Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Composer Award. His Piano Concerto was premiered by Joyce Yang and the Bangor Symphony Orchestra (under Lucas Richman) in October 2021. In her review for the Bangor Daily News, Judi Harrison said “[The concerto] also demonstrated that Moya is a composer who has much to say about the human condition in the 21st century and should be listened to often.”

His works have been performed by the Minnesota Orchestra (with Osmo Vänskä), the San Diego Symphony (with Rafael Payare), the Juilliard Orchestra (with Carlos Miguel Prieto), the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela (with Joshua Dos Santos), the New Jersey Symphony (with JoAnn Falletta), the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra (with Matthew Kraemer), the Lakes Area Music Festival Orchestra (with Gemma New), the Charlottesville Symphony Orchestra (with Ben Rous), the Orquesta Sinfónica de San Juan, Argentina (with Emmanuel Siffert), the Orquesta de Cámara de Bellas Artes in México (with Ludwig Carrasco). Other performers include the Jasper Quartet, the Oberlin Conservatory Orchestra, the Da Capo Chamber Players, the Lysander Piano Trio, the Attacca Quartet.

He has been named as the Composer-in-Residence of the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra from 2021-24, where he will compose new orchestral and chamber works and serve on the artistic board.

He was the Composer-Residence at The Schubert Club in Minnesota from 2017-19, which led to the commissioning and premiere of his chamber opera Tienda in May 2019. The premiere was hailed by the Star Tribune for its "proud individuality... [and] textures of pulsing vibrancy, subtly shading harmonies to trace the fragile emotional arc of his central characters." His family opera Memory Boy, with a libretto by Mark Campbell, was commissioned by the Minnesota Opera for its Project Opera and premiered in February of 2016. Excerpts from his opera Generalissimo (about the life, death and afterlife of a fictionalized Latin American dictator) have been performed in New York at Symphony Space and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. Excerpts from his opera Generalissimo were premiered in June 2013 at Symphony Space in New York City. Other performances from Generalissimo followed in November 2013 at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. His violin concerto Vestida de mar was co-commissioned by the Greenwood Music Camp and the Lakes Area Music Festival. It received its premiere in the summer of 2019 with Francesca Anderegg as the soloist and conducted by Benjamin Rous and Gemma New. His orchestral piece Siempre Lunes, Siempre Marzo was performed by the New Jersey Symphony and The Juilliard Orchestra, under the batons of JoAnn Falletta and Carlos Miguel Prieto, respectively. In the fall of 2016, his Passacaglia for Orchestra was chosen by the audience and the musicians of the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra as the winner of the Earshot Composers Competition sponsored by the American Composers Orchestra.

Mr. Moya has taught at St. Olaf College, and Interlochen Arts Camp, and is currently Assistant Professor of Composition at Augsburg University in Minneapolis.

Ángel Sauce, composer
Sauce was born in Caracas, the son of Juan Vicente Sauce and Justa Sauce. He was raised in the San Juan neighborhood of the capital. He studied music at the Academia de Declamación Musical de Caracas (currently the José Ángel Lamas School of Music), where he was a student of José Lorenzo Llamozas, Vicente Emilio Sojo and Manuel Leoncio Rodríguez.

Between 1945 and 1946 he received a New York City Scholarship, where he earned a degree in composition and conducting at Columbia University. In 1930 he participated in the founding of the Venezuela Symphony Orchestra as a violinist. Previously, being just a teenager, he was a member of the Philharmonic Union, the main predecessor of the Venezuela Symphony, under the direction of Vicente Martucci and Vicente Emilio Sojo. In 1947, he was named conductor of the orchestra, a position he held for more than 12 years.

Together with his wife, Professor Adda Elena de Sauce, he carried out important pedagogical work as a professor of Theory and Solfeggio, Harmony and Choral Singing at the "Juan Manuel Olivares" School of Music in Caracas. After retiring from this institution, he dedicated himself fully to his work as Director-Founder of the Juan José Landaeta National Conservatory of Music, which at that time depended on the Council National Ministry of Culture (current Ministry of Culture). Within the Conservatory, together with Dr. José Antonio Abreu, he promoted the foundation of the Juan José Landaeta National Youth Orchestra, the first nucleus of the State Foundation for the National System of Youth and Children's Orchestras of Venezuela. Both maestros, Sauce and Abreu conducted the inaugural concert of the Orchestra on April 30, 1975 in a State Concert at the Casa Amarilla, headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Venezuela. Also within the Conservatory, he gave a great boost to the studies of Musical Composition by creating the first course of Electroacoustic Music and Music of the 20th century in a Venezuelan conservatory, which was in charge of teachers Eduardo Kusnir and Antonio Mastrogiovanni, respectively.

In 1943, he began to organize a choir at the Ministry of Labor with more than 100 singers from the working class. The choir gave its first concert on July 24 of that year under the name Orfeón Obrero Juan Manuel Olivares. In 1950, after a brief recess, said choir became part of a group of cultural groups from the same office under the name of Coral Venezuela. During the 1950s, Sauce, at the head of the Venezuela Symphony and Choir, held the first performance in Venezuela of important works of the symphonic-choral repertoire, among which Igor Stravinski's Symphony of Psalms, Dmitri Shostakóvich's "Song of the threes", Symphony No. 9 and Missa Solemnis by Ludwig van Beethoven, Mass in D by José Ángel Lamas and El Tirano Aguirre by Evencio Castellanos. He was also a great promoter of choral activity in Venezuela by founding the choirs of Electricidad de Caracas, the Andrés Bello Catholic University and the Latin Choir of New York, the latter at the time he completed his postgraduate studies.

Sauce also excelled as a composer. Among his most important works are: Concerto for violin and orchestra, Symphonic Overture, Cantata Jehova Reina, Ballet Nacionalista symphonic-choral Cecilia Mujica, Romance del Rey Miguel, Sonata for violin and piano and Canto de libertad symphonic-choral work written on the occasion of the Bicentennial of the birth of the Liberator Simón Bolívar. In 1948, Sauce received the National Music Award for Jehovah Reina. In 1956, he obtained the "Vicente Emilio Sojo" Award for Cecilia Mujica. Likewise, in 1982, he received the National Music Award for his career, achievements and contributions to the musical culture of Venezuela. Ángel Sauce passed away on December 26, 1995, a few months after retiring as Director-Founder of the Juan José Landaeta National Conservatory of Music.

The Performers

Leo Rondón, venezuelan cuatro player
He took the 3rd place in La Siembra del Cuatro competition in 2007, the 2nd place in 2012 and in 2011 the 2nd place in El Silbón and San Martín. After teaching cuatro soloist, music theory and double bass at Merida School of Music (2003 – 2007), he has been an arranger of the Orquesta Típica Merideña (a venezuelan orchestra), a cuatro and double bass player at the String Ensamble at the University of Los Andes and an arranger and composer for the 5 Numerao ensamble. Since 2013 he is living in Paris.

During the summer in France, with a group of venezuelan musicians he develops a summer academy of Venezuelan Music. He has played in important halls and festivals in Venezuela, Colombia, Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Sweden, United Kingdom, Belgium, Netherlands and Morocco as a soloist or accompanying important musicians such as Cristobal Soto, Ricardo Sandoval, Alexis Cardenas, Huascar Barradas, Luis Julio Toro, José Antonio Naranjo, Orlando Moret, Cecilia Todd, etc. He is currently living in France.

Leo Rondón works in many musical projects involving both venezuelan and french talents. As a soloist, he has created the Leo Rondón Project which allows him to interpret his compositions and arrangements and to make music with invited musicians from all around the world. Leo is also the musical director of Waraira Quartet, a group created in 2015 with the aim of spreading the Venezuelan music in Europe. He plays also with Recoveco and Sandoval 4tet, groupes that integrates great performers such as Alexis Cárdenas, Ricardo Sandoval and Roberto Koch. Along with Maestro Cristobal Soto, a well known Venezuelan mandolinist, Leo teaches courses in cuatro, double bass, guitar, mandoline, tiple and composition at the headquarters of the Association Sonar, in Paris.

He plays a Cuatro tailored made by the French Luthier Mathias Caron


Simón Gollo, violinist
Simón Gollo is recognized as a multifaceted and charismatic musician who enjoys a successful international career as a chamber musician, pedagogue, soloist, and conductor. He is also a recording artist for the international recording label IBS Classical, and is represented, alongside the Reverón Piano Trio, by HALAC Artists and Meluk Kultur Management.

Simón Gollo has appeared on countless stages across Europe, Asia, and the American continent from Canada to Chile. His long career has led him to perform at prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall (New York), Cadogan Hall (London), the 92nd Street Y’s Kaufmann Concert Hall (New York), the National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), Bolívar Hall (London), the Teatro Teresa Carreño (Caracas), the Auditorio Blas Galindo (Mexico City), the Auditorio Manuel de Falla (Granada), and the Teatro Mayor (Bogotá), and for renowned organizations such as the BBC Proms Festival, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and the Chamber Music Society of Detroit. He has collaborated in these performances with international figures such as Alessio Bax, Ricardo Morales, Dmitri Berlinsky, Monique Duphil, Edicson Ruiz, Paul Rosenthal, John Novacek, Alissa Margulis, Jakob Koranyi, Miguel da Silva (Ysaÿe Quartet), Richard Young (Vermeer Quartet), Randolph Kelly, and the Cuarteto Latinoamericano, among many others.

From 2012 to 2020, Simón Gollo was a member of the Dalí String Quartet, La Catrina Quartet and the Q-Arte Quartet—ensembles specializing in Latin American music—participating in numerous successful tours and performances within and outside of the United States. His discography with La Catrina Quartet, which includes a Latin Grammy–nominated recording, is available on the RYCY Productions, Inc., and Summit Records labels. As a soloist, Simón Gollo has performed the greatest violin concertos with prestigious orchestras such as the Orquesta Sinfónica de Venezuela, Filarmónica de Bogotá, Orquesta Sinfónica de Salta (Argentina), Central Ohio Symphony (USA), Chamber Orchestra of San Antonio (USA), and the Orquesta de Caxias do Sul (Brazil), under the baton of prominent conductors such as Conrad van Alphen, Theodore Kuchar, and Carlos Izcaray.

His passion for chamber orchestras led him to join the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in New York and to play leading roles in major festivals, tours, and concerts with other chamber orchestras such as the Camerata Nordica (Sweden), Post Classical Ensemble (Washington, DC), Music Institute Chamber Orchestra (San Antonio) and Dallas Chamber Symphony. In January 2020 he was guest concertmaster for the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada under the baton of Michał Nesterowicz.

In 2020, his album “CHAUSSON,” alongside the pianist John Novacek, and under the label IBS CLASSICAL, received vast positive international reviews in prestigious magazines like Scherzo, Melomano, Mundo Clásico, El Diario de Sevilla, and Fanfare.

Throughout his career, Simon Gollo have served as the Founder and Artistic Director of various music festivals in Venezuela, Aruba, and the United States intended to educate and edify young musicians.

Simón Gollo has received numerous awards and recognitions, some of these include the “Order of Merit”, issued by the City Council of Maracaibo, in recognition of his outstanding achievements for the cultural sector in Maracaibo city. In 2021, he was selected as the recipient of a “Spring 2021 College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Faculty Achievement in Scholarship” at New Mexico State University. In 2022, the Rafael Urdaneta University in Maracaibo, Venezuela, conferred upon him the title of Honorary Professor.

Simón Gollo is appointed artistic director of the Snow Pond Summer Music Festival – New England Music Camp in 2022 and begins teaching violin as an associate professor at Furman University.

The Works

Terra Preta (Dark Earth), Anthropogenic Amazon
By Reinaldo Moya

Terra preta owes its characteristic black color to its weathered charcoal content, and was made by adding a mixture of charcoal, bone, broken pottery, compost and manure to the low fertility Amazonian soil. A product of indigenous soil management and slash-and-char agriculture, the charcoal is stable and remains in the soil for thousands of years, binding and retaining minerals and nutrients. Terra Preta is closely associated with the anthropological theory that posits that the vision of the Amazon forest as a pristine, uninhabited landscape, free from the influence of humanity is a myth. The Amazon as we know it today is a product of human activity, “For more than 8,000 years, people lived in the Amazon and farmed it to make it more productive. They favored certain trees over others, effectively creating crops that we now call the cocoa bean and the brazil nut, and they eventually domesticated them. And while many of the communities who managed these plants died in the Amerindian genocide 500 years ago, the effects of their work can still be observed in today’s Amazon rainforest.”

This theory made me think about our relationship with our environment, one which is becoming ever more fractious. In discussions with Mike Halerz (the video artist for the project) we agreed that one of the biggest challenges in understanding the situation in the Amazon is one of distance. We do not regularly see, experience, or interact with this environment. Humans can feel disconnected from it. The idea that from the very beginning of our species, humans have lived in close connection with this environment struck me as exactly the kind of relationship that we humans need to have with the Amazon today. We must think of all of humanity as being connected to this magnificent forest, and only then can we begin to take the necessary steps towards a better future.

The music then rests on a kind of metaphor. The Amazon is represented musically not by nature sounds, or even music by indigenous cultures, but rather by more recent folk styles. The three styles represented are those that come from the different regions in the Amazon. Capoeira music represents Brazil, Calipso del callao (the strange and delightful hybrid of Trinidad, Caribbean, and Venezuelan musical traditions) represents Southern Venezuelan, and a Chicha (a type of cumbia) hails from Peru and Colombia. Capoeira music is typically performed to accompany dancing and martial arts, and it features an indigenous instrument known as the Berimbau, the sound of which is imitated in the piece. Calipso del callao, is a musical style that comes from the Guayana region of Venezuela and combines musical elements from Trinidad, the Caribbean as well as Venezuelan instruments and styles. Chicha is an Amazonian cumbia that became popular in the 50s and 60s. These 3 styles are meant to represent the human culture that has evolved alongside the Amazon and that continues to thrive to today.

The work is built as a series of cycles that get longer and longer as a way to represent geological time passing. Each section introduces an Amazonian musical style. It is initially presented in a more direct way before it is distorted either harmonically, melodically or rhythmically. Each cycle unleashes some destruction with the final one bringing about a terrifying chaos. The destruction of these musics is meant to represent the loss not only of the environment, but of the cultures and music. After this chaos, a chorale of sorts emerges and the orchestra more or less comes together in a call to action for all of us to do our part in ensuring the future of our planet.


Suite Llanera (Suite from the plains)
By Claudia Calderón
1. Carnaval
2. Tonada
3. Chipola
4. SeisPicureao - Pajarillo Entreverao
*Program note to be loaded

Concierto para Violín y Orquesta (Concerto for violin and orchestra)
By Ángel Sauce
*Program note to be loaded

The Orchestra

The Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra Olomouc is one of the leading and oldest symphony orchestras in the Czech Republic. Based in the historic capital of Moravia, it will open its 77th concert season in September 2022.  Throughout its existence, it has been an irreplaceable centre of musical activities in the region.

The Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra Olomouc was founded immediately after the end of the Second World War, on 26 May 1945. During its development important personalities of the Czech and international music scene participated in its artistic formation.  Let us mention, the conductors Otto Klemperer and Václav Neumann, the violinists Josef Suk and Gidon Kremer, and the cellist Pierre Fournier. Over the course of its existence, the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra Olomouc has developed an extremely extensive and varied repertoire. Focuses mainly on the great composers of world music of the 19th and 20th centuries, however, it also promotes contemporary Czech and world music,  as evidenced by the performance of more than 250 new compositions. The orchestra also ranks among the authentic interpreters of the classics of Czech national music culture: Antonín Dvořák, Bedřich Smetana, Leoše Janáček a Bohuslav Martinů.

The Moravian Philharmonic has a rich discography  and performs at major international music festivals at home and abroad.Above all, it is a cultural institution that contributes substantially to the organisation of artistic and concert life in Olomouc and its regions.  It organises the  Dvořák Olomouc festival and the International Organ Festival Olomouc. Its activities also include a range of educational activities for children and young people.


Moravian Philharmonic

Budget

This is a rough budget outlining the general costs of the project. 

Orchestra     10,000.00
Audio Recording Team       2,400.00
Executive Assistant        1,500.00
Violin Soloist (Simon Gollo)       2,500.00
Cuatro Soloist (Leonidas Rondon)        1,500.00
Conductor fee       2,000.00
Video Recording       2,000.00
Travel/accommodations       2,000.00
Recording marketing/distribution       5,000.00
Project total
 €  28,900.00

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Thank you for your support!

Simon Zerpa

Details

  • Dates March 15th thru August 1st
  • Location Olomouc, Czech
  • Orchestra Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra Olomouc