Danzon(sito) is a ~4’ orchestral work, premiered 11/14/15 at Flushing Town Hall in Queens, NYC. This work is inspired by the intersection of modernism with folk culture, a juncture in which Cuban and Mexican fin-de-siecle composers found themselves when they wrote the original danzones.
The danzon was an early 20th century orchestral dance piece which combined or “creolized” European and indigenous sounds into a sort of middle-way aesthetic. My goal with this piece is to re-contextualize this genre. As a 21st century musician, my goal in Danzon(sito) is to test the boundaries of the listener’s expectations. This piece brings recalls preconceptions of “modern” tonality and “Latin” rhythms and forces them together in order to create a quirky, sort of wacky deconstructive feeling.
Coming from a Cuban-American background, my curiosity comes from the mashup between Latin-American and Anglo-American culture. Danzonsito is aiming for some disjunct topos between the sound worlds of Henry Cowell and Alejandro Caturla.
Charles Martin is a multi-genre composer, versatile musician, and creative entrepreneur working in New York City. His music has been performed in four countries and across three continents. Other recent commissions include the NYC Composers Collective, Fordham University Arts & Sciences, and the TreasureHouse Chorale.
