After Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera experienced a financial fiasco with the premiere of his second opera, “Bomarzo,” in Washington, D.C. in 1967—the opera was censored in Argentina under the authoritarian regime of Juan Carlos Onganía because of its libretto about torture, abuse, obsession, homosexuality, and impotence—he decided to leave his homeland. In 1971, he settled in Geneva, where he married his second wife, the Argentine concert cellist Aurora Nátola, and composed several important works for her, including “Serenata,” op. 42. For this work, Ginastera selected three poems from Pablo Neruda's “Love Poems,” which he set to music for the Puerto Rican bass-baritone Justino Díaz. In his late work, Ginastera combines the dramatic tone of his three operas with a lyrical expression that is particularly evident in his two late cello concertos.
In 2002, the concert organizer Ciclo de musica contemporánea del Teatro San Martín, Buenos Aires, Argentina commissioned seven local composers to write a piece based on John Cage's composition “4'33''” (1952), which celebrated its 50th anniversary that year. Erik Oña's contribution was the 12-minute sextet “De la incomprención de un silencio” (A Misunderstanding of Silence). The program is complemented by the sextet “Vertiges suspendus” by Chilean composer Matías Rosales, commissioned by the Ensemble Court-Circuit in 2023 and premiered in Boulogne-Billancourt in 2024.
Tickets are CHF 15-35; CHF 10 for members of Colourkey and children under age 12.

Website
garedunord.ch/en/calendar/3006/carte-blanche-for-natalia-salinas

Where
Gare du Nord
Schwarzwaldallee 200
4058 Basel

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