Blue Samba gathers music for piano four-hands by Miguel del Aguila, performed by Duo Powers-de la Torre (Lark Powers and Ricardo de la Torre). The programme spans some thirty years of the composer’s output and includes three world-premiere recordings. Influences from del Aguila’s native Uruguay and neighbouring Argentina run through his catalogue alongside echoes of the music of the Antilles, Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia, with rhythm as the organising principle.
The album grew out of Head for the Exit (2023), a short piece the duo commissioned as an encore or programme closer. Pianola Rebelde portrays an old player piano that rebels against its owner and begins to make its own music. The title work, Blue Samba (2024), draws on the second and third movements of del Aguila’s Concierto con Brio for oboe, clarinet and orchestra, moving from jazzy harmonies and swung rhythms to a samba built on an ostinato mostly in 13/16. In Charango Capriccioso (2006) the duo is joined by a string quintet for a journey to the Andes and the sound of the charango, while Malambo (2016) follows an Argentine gaucho in a village deep in the Pampas. Each pianist also plays a solo work: Ricardo de la Torre plays Music in a Bottle (1999) and Lark Powers plays Conga (1993), the oldest piece on the album.
