Hernandez - Initiation to the Shadow

The distinguished Spanish composer and pianist Sira Hernández is known especially for her involvement with multi-discipline arts projects at major international festivals and cultural events. Many of her works are inspired by Italian artists as can be heard on this album. Minimalist techniques and the significance of tonality and timbre in communicating darkness and light are heard in Iniciación a la sombra and the sewing-machine ostinatos of Fantasía para piano. The presence of God amidst the bleak spaces of madness are expressed in Terra Santa, and the intensity of Don't Forget About That invites us to resist oblivion. This is Sira Hernández's debut on the Naxos label, but she is well known in Spain and beyond for her concert performances and her recordings of Soler, Mompou, J.S. Bach. The opening piece on this new album, Iniciación a la sombra ('Initiation to the Shadow) was originally presented at Arts Santa Mònica in Barcelona in a multi-disciplinary performance with dance and readings of poetry by Ángel Crespo, the same production appearing in Madrid as part of the Ellas Crean festival in the prestigious Conde Duque cultural center. Sira Hernández's music has a wide appeal, with it's tonal centre and feeling of familiarity. The combination of performer and composer in one holds a unique expressive determination to reveal what Ramón Barce called 'the communication of hidden beauty', and with both the attractions of minimalist and ostinato techniques and the uncompromising intensity of the composer's response to her subject material, the effect of this carefully conceived programme as a whole is profoundly poetic.