Epifanía

Leonard Salzedo was born in London and was descended from the Sephardic Jews who left Spain at the end of the 15th century. In 1944, while he was still a student at the Royal College of Music, he was commissioned by Marie Rambert to write his first ballet score "The Fugitive" which, after its first performance in November of that year, was performed more than 400 times by the Ballet Rambert in England and abroad. It was also seen on BBC Television. The most successful of his 17 ballet scores is undoubtedly "The Witch Boy" first produced in Amsterdam in 1956 and subsequently performed more than 700 times in over 30 countries. The world premieres of all the works on this CD were given by Pavel Burda in Milwaukee with the composer in attendance. A common thread for the Salzedo works is the use of over two dozen chromatically tuned gongs in all five works. Burda first encountered gongs made by the Paiste Company while recording with the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg and was immediately entranced. This experience led directly to his commissioning the composer. It was Burda's idea to have a series of works in which the compositional focus is the interaction of the unique timbres of these gongs with different ensembles such as string quartet or choir.