An amazing collection of original music composed and performed by Gonzalo on a variety of flutes from around the world. Great for meditation, healing work, relaxation and more.

11 MP3 Songs
WORLD: World Traditions, NEW AGE: Healing



Details:
Gonzalo Cortés, a native of Chile, began studying flute at the age of 12 in the La Serena School of Music. He studied with Alberto Harms at the Catholic University of Chile, graduating in 1993. During his studies there, he won the Principal Flute position with the Classical Orchestra of Santiago, which he held for 8 years. He then came to the United States and earned an Artist Diploma from Duquesne University with Robert Langevin, Principal Flute of the New York Philharmonic, as his teacher.

As a soloist, he has toured South America with the Classical Orchestra of Santiago among others ensembles. Mr. Cortés has performed in music festivals such as the Primer Festival International de Flauta in Rio de Janeiro, Semanas Musicales de Frutillar, Chile, the Western Slope Music Festival in Crested Butte, Colorado.

Valle, Risco and Montaña were composed in 2003 during my residence in Farmington, Connecticut. In Valle and Montaña I play the quena. The term quena is from the Aymara language. These instruments existed before the Inca civilization was born and in ancient times were made of gold, ceramic and bone.

Mohican and Espejismo. I went to a folk festival in Connecticut where I bought a bamboo flute from a maker from Massachusetts "Serenity Bamboo." This precious instrument inspired me to compose these pieces. The sound of the water in Mohican is the Farmington River.

Tata Quillacas represents a style typical of how music is played in the Andean festivities. A band of sikuris plays for long time and then is interrupted by another band, in this case tarkas.

Oriental Landscape. What I am playing here is an oriental flute tuned in the same way of the Japanese Sakuhachi, this sweet melody represent the colors and beauty of a Japanese village.

The Warriors of Qin Shihuang. In 1974, in the district of Lintong, near the city of Xi'an an amazing discovery was made. Fourteen hundred yards east of the outer walls of the mausoleum of Qin Shihuang, the first emperor of China, an enormous trench was found containing thousands of terra-cotta figures of soldiers dating back to the Qin period (221-206 BC). What I imagine here is a soldier playing a flute in total solitude for thousands of years.

Pozo Almonte is a very small town in the middle of the desert in the north of Chile. My uncle Segundo lived almost his entire life there. I remember him as a tall and strong man that used to work in mining but whose eyes always had an insightful gleam.

Amazonas. The river is represented by the low sikus. The note is G and the sound of the cane gives the intensity and deepness. Over that is the flute and piccolo interacting with different melodies and percussion instruments represent snakes that move every where.

Sikuris. Ira and Arca are Aymaran terminologies that make reference to the two rows of cane in the siku. These two rows of cane make a musical line and create a dialogue between musicians. Ira is the one who takes the lead and Arca is the one who follows and both rows of cane generate one bipolar musical instrument. What I was picturing while composing this piece is deep in the great solitude of the Andean Mountains a man is playing the sikus while meditating from high above the world.