El cello cuscatleco
Over the last five years, I have dedicated much of my time to researching Salvadoran concert music history for the cello. As a first-generation Salvadoran American, I was inspired to dive into my country’s concert music history and soundscape, one that I had never been exposed to growing up. What began as a simple interest eventually evolved into my doctoral capstone project and, ultimately, “El Cello Cuscatleco”. (Cuscatleco means a person, thing, or characteristic native to or from El Salvador)
This journey began when I blindly reached out online to someone who is now my dear friend, Dr. Germán Cáceres, in search of compositions written specifically for the cello. It grew into reaching out to the National School of Music in El Salvador, forming friendships with the school and its community, and returning for various concerts and community outreach events over the last two years. Finally, it led to the professional recording of a studio album in collaboration with Cincinnati Public Radio, my friend and pianist Zhisheng Wang, and a graduate string quintet from CCM. (Riki Nagai, Andrew Smeader, Lila Reeser, Colin Gregoire, and Naomi Bennet)
“El Cello Cuscatleco” is a research initiative focused on documenting and digitally archiving Salvadoran cello music. At its heart, this album is an act of musical repatriation, returning this repertoire to the Salvadoran soundscape and culture while making it accessible to listeners, musicians, Salvadoran students, and researchers around the world.
The album’s cover art was commissioned from Salvadoran painter Angel Ramirez, who runs the Escuela de Arte Jireh in San Salvador. Originally from Verapaz in San Vicente, the same city from which my mother’s ancestral lineage comes, Angel created a beautiful work depicting the Chichontepec Volcano in San Vicente. In the painting, I am shown walking through the city of San Vicente toward the volcano with my actual cello case on my back, representing my return to my homeland and to the land where generations of my mother’s family lived for centuries and where these pieces come from.
Tracklist
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Cello Concerto in A Major (1985) by José Napoleón Rodríguez (1901–1986), accompanied by Zhisheng Wang
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Romántica for cello and string quintet (1986) by Esteban Servellón (1921–2003), accompanied by a CCM graduate string quintet: Riki Nagai, Andrew Smeader, Lila Reeser, Colin Gregoire, and Naomi Bennet
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A version for cello and piano was also recorded with Zhisheng Wang
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Tiento III for solo cello (2003) and Dos Reflexiones Sobre el Silencio for solo cello (2020) by German Cáceres (b. 1954) inspired by excerpts from María Cristina Orantes’s poems.
