Happy Birthday, David del Puerto

Tomorrow the 30th is the birthday of my friend and one of the most prominent Spanish composer of today, David del Puerto. This previous week has been indeed a "Del Puerto week" : our CD of his Second Symphony "Nusantara" and Violin Concerto has at last arrived in the Spanish shops ; I performed many of his piano pieces at the Spanish Residence (a historical place where Ravel, Stravinsky and others had stayed and presented their works when they were alive) last Thursday, and on Friday his ethereal, dark and deeply moving orchestral work "Variations in memory of Gonzalo de Olavide" was succesfully premiered, and repeated during the next two days. I could only go to the general rehearsal in the morning previous to the concert since I had to leave back home after lunch, but it was already excellently played by a young promising and highly talented conductor with whom we went out for lunch afterwards, Pablo Gonzalez. And he is very very nice as well, so he has a double merit ! The orchestra, by the way, was Orquesta Nacional de España who sounded brilliant under his baton, who I also heard with Beethoven's Second , to end the program.

I have known David for more than 12 years now. During those years our collaboration has given birth to many piano and chamber works, and culminated (but hopefully won't be the last !) in his masterpiece "Nusantara" for piano and orchestra. Now "Nusantara" has been hailed as "the great Spanish symphony", but I consider it as THE great Indonesian symphony as well, since it deals with many issues and even musical material from my country. It is rather ironic, isn't it, that the first symphony in history dealing with Indonesia is written by a Spanish composer ?

We both are a big fan of Death in Venice (both Thomas Mann's novel and Benjamin Britten's opera), and we took these photos during the Italian premiere of "Nusantara" in Teatro La Fenice, Venice last October 2006. That was the hotel where Mann was inspired to write his masterpiece ( it was David who told me that Tadzio was inspired by a real boy bathing at the beach right in front of the hotel) and also where Diaghliev died in one of its room. And we visited the tomb of our other idol, Igor the greatest, at the memorable Isola di San Marco. During this visit, David was inspired to write his Third Symphony, which he is writing now. Hopefully another masterpiece from the 43-year-young great composer.

Chendra the Champ

Many things happened last week, which include many new notes coming from my pencil during my travels.

My new CD of David del Puerto's Symphony no. 2 for piano & orchestra "Nusantara" was released and presented in Milan on the 20th. The CD is produced by Stradivarius , and I recorded it with the Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid conducted by Jose Ramon Encinar . Another great piece in that CD is del Puerto's Violin Concerto with the same orchestra & conductor accompanying the celebrated Spanish violinist Manuel Guillen . I am so proud of this CD (not only half of it ; the Violin Concerto is also indeed a great work. In fact, many people believe that it's the greatest violin concerto coming from Spain during the last 50 years or so) . So, if you happen to be in Italy these days, just enter a CD shop and ask for it. It will be distributed in Spain starting in April, and in 30 other countries starting in May .

Two days later I travelled to Madrid meeting Chendra Panatan & David del Puerto (we stayed in the latter's house). The great occasion this time is the presentation of Musica Presente (an article in the Spanish newspaper "ABC" describes us as "The dreamteam of Spanish music". If you read Spanish, you can visit our website at www.musicapresente.com ) to some VVIPs of Madrid, which include some performances either by Musica Presente members or artists invited by us. One of the guests is my idol Jose Luis Cuerda, the film director and producer, among others of "The Others", a film that was shot in Las Fraguas, near my house in Cantabria starring Nicole Kidman. David del Puerto, Jesus Rueda and Javier Arias Bal have written music soundtracks for his films. Other guests include some high politicians, senators of the Socialist Party, and Carlos Llamas, the popular radio presenter who became the successful Master of Ceremony that night.

At that event Chendra danced to the music of the fourth of movement, "Samudra", from Del Puerto's Nusantara Symphony . 7 minutes of spectacular solo dancing, completely being one with the dazzling orchestration which employs among others the gamelan pentatonic mode, played by a huge orchestra of the best virtuosos in Spain . His show was certainly the absolute highlight of the night. I cannot recall anyone who wasn't impressed by his interpretation of the music, his dance technique and rich vocabulary of movements. His dancework is an embodiment of the virtuosic western "ballet" technique and the profoundness and grace of the Balinese traditional dance, achieving a sense of both defying and defining gravity with precise meticulosity and spontaniety. Simply impressive, nothing short of spectacular.