Exile: Hope and Resilience. An Interview with Cuban pianist Ahmed Alom
● Articles
On May 05, Cuban pianist Ahmed Alom is set to release his second single, Andaluza—the monumental piece by Manuel de Falla, from his upcoming album Exilio.
Exilio has already received critical acclaim and was described by the renowned American pianist, Simone Dinnerstein as “timely”, given the current surge of migrants leaving their homes in search of a better life, while celebrated Australian pianist Lisa Moore said: "The album... is performed with elegant phrasing, sumptuous sound, and deep commitment. [Alom] is a wonderful pianist, and his generous focus on composers in exile shines a beacon of light on the plight and struggles of our humanity."
Colombian musicologist and pianist, Sergio Ospina-Romero, Ph.D. (Assistant Professor of Musicology at Indiana University and author of the book Dolor que canta. La vida y la música de Luis A. Calvo en la sociedad colombiana de comienzos del siglo XX), the leading scholar on Calvo's life and music, wrote: “Even if symbolically exiled, Calvo’s music journeyed across nations, continents, and even time. Alom’s album Exilio is yet another testimony of these journeys, one distinctly eloquent, the musical voice of a myriad of ongoing voyages.” Also, Colombian musicologist and pianist, Luis Gabriel Mesa, Ph.D. (Director of the Master of Music program at Pontifical Xavierian University in Bogotá, Colombia), praises the selection of musical works integrated into Alom's repertoire, highlighting the coherence of the thread that links those earthly and sentimental exiles, making it a production worth contemplating.
The album Exilio is scheduled to be released on June 02 by the Brooklyn—based independent record label, Irreverence Group Music.
Links:
● Buy & Stream Calvo’s Intermezzo No. 4
● Buy & Stream Alom’s Exilio album
To mark this occasion, IGMagazine had the opportunity to speak with Ahmed about his creative process and thoughts on music.
Tracklist:
1. Calvo: Intermezzo, No. 1
2. Calvo: Intermezzo, No. 2: Lejano Azul
3. Calvo: Intermezzo, No. 3
4. Calvo: Intermezzo, No. 4
5. Cervantes: Danzas Cubanas: Mensaje
6. Cervantes: Danzas Cubanas: Velorio
7. Cervantes: Danzas Cubanas: Ilusiones Perdidas
8. Cervantes: Danzas Cubanas: Los Tres Golpes
9. Lecuona: Danzas Cubanas: La Comparsa
10. Lecuona: Danzas Afrocubanas: En Tres Por Cuatro
11. Falla: Canción
12. Falla: Cuatro Piezas Españolas: IV. Andaluza
13. Albéniz: Recuerdos De Viaje, Op. 71: VI. Rumores De La Caleta
Bonus track
14. De La Chica: Adiós Cuba (Feat. Rosario Armas)
Q&A with Ahmed Alom
1. Hi Ahmed. How do you do? Thanks for sharing your thoughts about your music with the IGM community. Tell us a bit about yourself. We know you were born in Cuba and are now living in New York City…
Hi IGM! Thank you for reaching out to me for this interview, I’m very excited!
I was born in Cuba in Havana in 1998. I am 24 years old, currently living in New York since I was 18 years old. Since my arrival here, I completed my Bachelor of Music at the Manhattan School of Music, and I have been experiencing the broad stylistic scene that New York offers. I have been playing classical music, chamber music, Cuban music, jazz, and recently I started to study conducting. I have been very lucky to collaborate with great people here in the city, and all over the United States and I couldn’t be happier with my life so far. I married mezzo-soprano Rosario Armas last year, whom I met at Manhattan School of Music and we have started to grow together here in the city.
2. When did your interest in music begin and at what point did you decide to dedicate yourself to it?
My interest in music started in a very young age. I remember that my aunt had a piano that she wanted to give away for some reason, and my mother accepted to take the piano into our apartment. My mom says that she had a collection of recordings, including Afro Cuban jazz, and some classical music. I do not remember this, but she says that I used to listen to these records all day. And I would sing, or tap the rhythms exactly in the same way. I guess I had a good ear to recognize sounds and patterns. Also, and again, I don’t remember this, but she said that once I saw the movie Aladdin, and I will repeat it so many times that at some point I just knew the whole movie with the dialogues with the sounds, even the tones and the characters. That’s when she knew I had an aptitude for music, sounds, etc. so I started taking some lessons on aural training.
Ahmed Alom
Photo courtesy: Ahmed's personal photography archives
Later on, my mother sent me to a class that my professor Hortensia Upmann used to give, which was a class for young students in order to get involved with music. When I think about it, the approach was almost like when you learn a different language. We used to sing a lot and read a lot of music, and we used to enjoy it quite a lot. At that time I didn’t know exactly what instrument I was able to play, I used to play the piano we had at our apartment which I loved, but at the same time I found an affinity to rhythm. So, professor Upmann saw an aptitude on me, and she recommended my mom to have me go to school and to learn Percussion. Once I got accepted into music school, I had to take elementary piano, with my first piano teacher, Beatriz Olivera, who was the first professor that really showed me the capabilities and everything that I love how about the piano. Then she recommended me to pursue also a piano career and that is when I did my auditions. From there, I started a double major on piano and percussion and was lucky to be taught by great mentors in all fields of music.
Ahmed Alom
Photo by Julián De La Chica
3. Cuba is known for its music, folklore and culture. How has your relationship with its music been, and how has it influenced your work?
Yes, Cuba has a vast history musical history. Since the 1600s, African slaves brought their culture and traditions that slowly were combined with the Spanish and European traditions. Music is very important for us, we play it all the time, in any setting, and we love to dance and move with it. I think we are extremely intuitive musicians, and this culture has helped me in my playing, and it has shaped my conceptions in music. What is also interesting is that Cuba in the XIX century, was one of the first Latin American countries that built a strong classical tradition. We have records of people like Claudio Brindis de Salas and José Manuel Jimenez, who were extremely good classical musicians, and they were professors and scholars in Paris and Hamburg. I would like to mention that they were people of color, which at that time and in that contexts, I can imagine it was almost impossible being able to teach the great works by Bach, Beethoven, among others classical composers at conservatories in Europe.
All of this has made an impact on myself, and my way to see music is very universal. Jazz, Classical, improvisation, they all fall in the same context. The rhythms of my country have a certain freedom in the way they are played, and I like to use that concept on my interpretations, and bring something different into the works I perform.
Ahmed Alom
Photo by Julián De La Chica
4. You are a classical pianist who graduated under the baton of the legendary Dr. Solomon Mikowsky, however, you play a variety of styles. How do you, from a classical perspective, assimilate into a still—conservative world and achieve a balance between both worlds? Do you believe it's possible?
Indeed! I had my Bachelor of Music in Classical Piano Performance, and I am extremely lucky an honored to have studied with Dr. Solomon Mikowsky. I remember that at MSM on the weekends I used to go to restaurants and play son and salsa, and then go to the jazz clubs and play in the jam sessions, and the next morning I will have my classical piano lessons, learning about Brahms and Chopin. If I have any musical truth in my life is that music is ONE, in every sense, made with the same sounds, and the same ability to express feelings. For us, especially classical pianists, I think we need to be able to look and understand music in that way.
Ahmed Alom & Dr. Solomon Mikowsky
Photo courtesy: Ahmed's personal photography archives
I am aware that the classical music world tends to be conservative and traditional, although I am seeing signs of transition, but it wasn’t always like that. The greatest pianists of the 20th century did their own transcriptions, they all improvised, and they all explored different things with their interpretations, regardless of the cannons. For example I believe that Rubinstein was very responsible for the way we play Chopin nowadays. If we look back to the music of Bach and Mozart, they were improvisers, and I think that in order to be able to understand them better, we need to open our ability to improvise and discover new things in the music. That is something that what we call popular music has in its core. The classical music of today was the popular music of the past and I think that the world is changing in many ways, and the music changes with it. I think it’s possible to unify both worlds, if we start approaching it as one, and if we understand their connections.
5. Let’s talk about your new album. How did you get the idea of exploring the "sound" of EXILIO?
My new album, Exilio, came through an interesting combination of events. I was first introduced to Julián De La Chica, a composer based in Brooklyn, who was my first and main connection to the idea of the album. We meet through one of my beloved piano teachers in Cuba, Leonardo Gell, who is himself a phenomenal pianist that collaborated with Julián in the past. Julián and I got in touch, and he introduced me to the Colombian composer Luis Antonio Calvo.
Luis A. Calvo in his house in Agua de Dios.
Photo courtesy Internet.
At the beginning of our conversation, Julián mentioned that Calvo was diagnosed with leprosy in 1916. According to the law in Colombia at that time, people with leprosy were confined to places that resembled concentration camps. When they discovered that Calvo had leprosy, he was forced to live in Agua de Dios and be isolated without ever leaving—a sort of exile inside his own country. Agua de Dios was a small town that served as a mass leprosarium run by the Colombian government during the 19th and 20th centuries. The product of two decades of investigative work by Julián is his recently published book God’s Punishment, which highlights the human rights abuses of this dark chapter in Colombia’s history. Calvo lived in Agua de Dios for almost his entire life and wrote most of his music there.
Then we thought, what if we make a story on the many meaning of being exiled, and make it a tribute to composers that wrote music many forms of Exile as well, interpreted by me, a young Cuban artist living in New York City. I think it represents a different form of exile in modern days.
Ahmed Alom & Julián De La Chica
Photo by Miguel Mourato—Gordo
6. How was the creative process of Exilio?
From there the creative process came together, trying to find a representation and a philosophical connection about Exilio. My focus was finding composers that wrote music in a context that involves many forms of exile. To start, I went back to my roots and decided to record the music of Ignacio Cervantes and Ernesto Lecuona, both very important figures in the piano repertoire, that left for many different reasons.
In the case of Cervantes, he left to Mexico, and he started raising funds to the Cuban Independence War against Spain, while Lecuona left Cuba after Castro’s Revolution. Then we have Manuel de Falla, who flew to Argentina, while the Spanish regime of Franco, and Isaac Albéniz, who lived and died in Paris.
This repertoire in my opinion looks like if this composers gathered in a table and composed this music in harmony. They come from different styles, but we can feel their energy and spiritual collection behind their works. To finish the conception of the album, I recorded a song by Julián named Adiós Cuba with mezzo-soprano Rosario Armas, that closes the story and at the same time leaves it open, since Julián is a living composer living in New York, and with whom I share a musical relationship.
Exilio ● Trailer
7. According to records, you could be the first pianist in history to include Calvo's four intermezzos in a recording. How do you feel about that?
Being the first pianist to record all four Intermezzos by Calvo in one production is something that makes me feel honored, but more than anything, it makes me conscious of the responsibility of the interpreter to do justice to the music, to speak our voice, and to speak on behalf of the composer. The biggest reward of this project is knowing that I've done something for Calvo's music, bringing it back to life and making it known. Hopefully, more people will play his music in the future.
The MINIMALIST (not mannerist) interpretation
of CALVO’S four Intermezzos, STANDS OUT.
— Susan Campos-Fonseca
8. How would you describe Calvo's music? And what was your process of discovering and getting to know it?
For me, learning the music of Calvo was a very special process. First, the fact that there is not a lot of information about him and his music, and the very limited number of recordings available, made room for a lot of interpretation. He is not a composer I grew up hearing, so it was both a challenge and a new experience to engage with his work. The way I felt his music was very minimal, yet he was still able to express so much. I believe he is a romantic composer, but in his own way, with music that comes from resilience, powerful humility, and unpretentiousness. Making a connection with his work has been one of the greatest things to happen in my career. Playing his music feels like traveling to the past, having a cup of coffee with Calvo himself, and every time I play his music, I discover more about him.
Alom plays Calvo’s four Intermezzos… with WARMTH and CARE,
channeling the uncanny combination of charm
and emotional distance in the music.
— George Grella (Music critic)
Ahmed Alom
Photo by Julián De La Chica
9. The album concludes with a piece by a living composer. Some may initially think that it has little to do with the rest of the repertoire. However, this work is particularly special because it features Rosario Armas, your wife, as a vocalist. Can you tell us more about your experience recording this piece?
The final work, Adiós Cuba, poses an open question. The album is both a tribute and a discovery. Julián's piece speaks about the past and the future, my own present-day exile, and Rosario's, who beautifully sings and makes her own statement. When Julián first showed us the music, it was originally written for a string quartet, piano, and voice. One evening after dinner with Julián, we played the song and rearranged it in our own way, incorporating his ideas. In the studio, we played and improvised over the song. Earlier, I mentioned how classical music can connect with popular music, and this song is a testament to that idea. Adiós Cuba speaks through my soul and Rosario's, posing a question and an idea that asks us to think of exile with nostalgia but also as a movement and transformation.
Rosario Armas & Ahmed Alom
Photo by Julián De La Chica
10. What’s Ahmed Alom working on right now? What should we expect soon?
Aside from the album, I am extremely excited for what this year have in store for me. I am planning to record more music as a soloist, and I already have some projects in mind for the end of this year. I am trying to focus on my conducting studies, and I have commitments to conduct orchestras in New York in the summer and by the end of the year. I cannot speak many details, but later this year, I will do a very special project that combines classical western music with Yoruba chants and rhythms coming from the Afro Cuban influence in Cuba.
I play and conduct for Ballet Hispanico at the moment, I collaborate with artists mostly in New York and L.A, and I started a chamber trio with Caleb Hudson and Achilles Liarmakopoulos, two members from the ensemble Canadian Brass, with whom I have a commission project set by the end of this year, where they’ll record my own arrangement of Marquez’s Danzon No. 2.
11. Finally, you are emerging in New York, the world's musical mecca, as a new figure in the musical field. What advice would you give to the young musicians/pianists who are reading us?
The advice I can give to young musicians is to be open minded, and to find your own truth. I always say to young pianists that they should think about music as a whole. That means going to orchestral concerts, chamber, either pop or jazz or Latin music, anything! It always adds up to your knowledge and expression in your soul, and it will help you to understand and to find your voice even faster. Be bold, creative and love and feel music in every possible way.