World Premiere: November, 14, 2024

Orquesta Mexicana de las Artes, Conductor: Eduardo García Barrios

Centro Cultural Roberto Cantoral, Ciudad de México, México

Winning piece of the Arturo Márquez Composition Competition for Chamber Orchestra 2024

Citámbulos

(2023)

scored for orchestra (1111.1110. Timp. 2perc. strings)

Upon hearing the word "Citámbulo," it struck me as a playful and fitting way to describe a chilango (a resident of Mexico City). I immediately thought of dividing the term into "citadino" (urban dweller) and "ambulante" (wanderer). According to the Royal Spanish Academy dictionary, "ambulante" refers to someone who "moves from one place to another without a fixed residence." I believe this is an apt description of the inhabitants of this city: we are constantly on the move, going from one place to another, encountering all kinds of people in spaces that change from one street corner to the next. Additionally, "ambulante" is a term deeply ingrained in the culture of Mexico City, where nearly every corner is occupied by informal street vendors, adding a unique vibrancy to the city's lifestyle.

The title of this piece was inspired by the book of the same name, created by a collective of artists (Ana Álvarez, Valentina Rojas Loa, Christian Von Wissel, and Fionn Petch). This book compiles a series of urban photographs that capture different aspects of the city: markets, stadiums, buildings, parking lots, protests, neighborhoods, and everyday life in general. I believe it beautifully portrays the chaotic essence of Mexico City.

This piece serves as a guide that invites listeners to traverse the city's streets and engage in dialogue with its inhabitants. It proposes that sounds construct a new map of the urban phenomenon that we often overlook in our daily lives. For me, it has always been important to reflect the space and time I inhabit, the environment I live in, and experience in this city.

Writing a mambo, in my view, is a clear way to express how I perceive the journey through this metropolis, with the warmth and humor of its people. Pérez Prado experienced great success with his mambos in Mexico City, and a prime example of an "urban mambo" is El Ruletero, where one of its verses mentions various neighborhoods in the city. Just as Pérez Prado once did, I want to speak about this city, but from my own contemporary perspective. Citámbulos is, at its core, a sonic chronicle of this chaotic city.

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