I am a composer, improvisor and lecturer, from Cali, Colombia, currently living in Bogotá, Colombia. As a musician, my career has taken place in Cali, Bogotá, and Birmingham, UK, first as a pianist and later as a composer.
Hi there! I’m Carolina Noguera. I’m a Colombian composer, improvisor, lecturer, currently living in Bogota, Columbia. I want to thank Mange Valencia, for inviting me to share this playlist with you.
So, I want to tell you that as a musician, I am interested in softening and interconnecting boundaries between musical genres. And in that search I’m fascinated by the tension between noisy, polyrhythmic textures on the one hand and lyrical, touching melodies on the other.
I suppose there’s a correlate between our emotions and our words. I believe we are multiplicities, encapsulated in the idea of being one person – as a singularity –but inside, there is a visceral torrent of contradictory, dark, intense passions that cannot be channeled on the surface, but that from within can emerge in the form of reverberation and music, in a passion that can be comforted and sustained by sounds that invite tenderness towards ourselves and those around us. I hope you enjoy it.
Internas multitudes by Diana Ortiz, Performed by Ortiz and Juan Carlos Higuita
The title of this beautiful piece, part of this magnificent album, alludes precisely to inner sounds, their strangeness and plurality, indecipherable even to those who inhabit them. That is one of the textures that interests me both aesthetically and musically. The preparation of the viola and the manipulation with electronics take the sound to something that, for me, is ineffable, elusive, but the viola’s voice softens that tempest with its profound song.
“Silencio,” traditional piece, Performed by Leonila Dinas (voz principal), Yorleyer Dinas (tambora nortecaucana), Cantoras de Villa Rica (coros), Produced by Músicas del Río from Universidad Javeriana in Cali Colombia
This piece is a traditional bunde, from the Afro-Colombian tradition in the south of the geographical valley of the Cauca River. The way the woman sings is absolutely truthful. I believe there is a forcefulness in what she expresses not only in the words of the bunde, but also in the timbral particularities of the sound of her voice and the way she intonates. A coexistence between timbral complexity and melodic clarity.
La Permanencia by Canela Palacios
This work for 24 tarkas (traditional Bolivian wind instruments) sounds to me like thunderous, stifled cries of joy, giving their all, dying at the very edge of the human universe of breath. It draws inspiration from traditional Andean music of homogeneous groups, rich sonorities, and the idea of a multiplied sound, like a multiplication of oneself. As if it were a resonance of itself, of its own being. A concave community that gathers it and allows it to listen to its inner self.
Compassion by Julia Wolfe, Performed by Conrad Tao
The structure of this piece represents the duality that I explained in the introduction. Written after the event of the Twin Towers of 9/11, the piece unfolds episodes of anger contrasted with oscillations in the minor key, first on the first degree and finally on the fifth, which attempt to soften the pain and anxiety generated by said event.
“A song for” by James Díaz, Performed by Julia Suh
I encounter a melodic, interrupted, playful, candid, and innocent song, with illusory and breathtaking overlays that almost make me question my sanity. At times, the appearance of the drone accelerates the inner journey and the penetrating power of its magic. The repetitions and insistence also seem to push us to the limit. It is a hallucinatory and powerfully beautiful music.
El silencio al rojo rueda como un sol by Carolina Noguera, Performed by the SIGMA Project Sax Quartet
This work, of my own creation, is very important to me as I composed it during a very difficult emotional time. It portrays an introspective escape that travels in circles toward the folds of the inner self. In the work, a primordial canvas is constructed from coral textures, upon which luminous monologues and counterpoint melodies shine, their resonances revealing the grace of being.
Mobile by Michelle Agnes Magalhaes, Performed by Ricardo Descalzo
This piece by this intriguing Franco-Brazilian composer strikes me as incredibly revealing. It’s playful, but with a play of rustic objects, seemingly abandoned and rusted, rather than toys on a clean shelf. I find it funny, dramatic, sweet, and melancholic all at once, and it masterfully immerses us in a rebellious, introspective, and pleading poetics.
“Solastalgia” by Carola Bauckholt, Performed by Karin Hellqvist
This is probably one of the saddest and touching things I have ever heard. The insistence of a static and floating time threatens to invade the innermost depths and intimacy, at a very high risk of unraveling our authentic being.
“Pulsos” by Nestor Vivas, Performed by Manglar Trio
In this music, there’s a Ligetian insistence on harmonic constellations that broaden and alleviate the monotony of the obstinato, a kind of ineffable pulse of existence. Harmony emerges as a landscape of glances, embraces, and affections. And the jazz element appears only as a form of accompaniment (bass and drums) but not in the overall syntax or the piano line. I see there a powerful search for mediation between genres.
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