The Dances of the Diaspora are a set of pieces by composers who are foreign born and live in the United States. Each composer represents a different culture. I commissioned each of these composers to write a piece of music in a dance rhythm that would reflect their native cultures.
For the Prelude Fantasy I wanted to touch on my own mixed cultural background. The piece is based on a popular Puerto Rican song that my mother loved, Mi Viejo San Juan. The song can be clearly heard in the harmonic progression of the prelude.
The milonga is a popular dance form from Argentina. I have heard the milonga described as a fast tango. In his Milonga para Roberto Fernando Otero effectively blends contemporary compositional styles using elements of minimalist composition with modern jazz harmonies to create a milonga for the 21st century.
Shatra is a rhapsody on motives from Jewish-Yemenite women's songs. In it, Naama Perel-Tzadok freely moves through several such songs before evoking the opening motives to bring it to a balanced conclusion. The word "Shatra" implies a strong woman.
In Beyond the Vintage Skies a gently rocking introduction in triple meter gives way to a darker motive that contains within it elements of the Donia Jarrar's Palestinian/Kuwaiti/Egyptian background.
For his Exotic Dances, Fred Onovwerosuoke created a three-movement suite that takes us through different cultures of Africa. The first evokes the repeated patterns of the mvet, a type of stick zither played by the Fang people. The Fang are a Bantu ethnic group found in Equatorial Guinea, northern Gabon, and southern Cameroon. Fred's second movement is a haunting and seductive piece that evokes the culture of the Nubian people, a Nilo-Saharan ethnic group indigenous to northern Sudan and southern Egypt. It seems to be inspired by a call to worship by the oud player Hamza el Din. The third movement is based on the geedal, a 6 or 7 stringed harp played by the Bayaka people. Their vocal music incorporates a characteristic yodel, which is imitated in their instrumental music as well. The Bayaka are a nomadic Mbenga pygmy people who inhabit south-western Central African Republic and northern Republic of the Congo.
Verabei (Sparrow) is based on an ancient Belarusian fiddle tune of the same name and also incorporates the melody of a Belarusian folk song called Oi I Grusha Maya (My Pear Tree).
