New World Symphony + Miami City Ballet Dancers Star In PROHIBIDO World Premiere

On Sunday, January 26 (2 pm) at the New World Center in Miami, the Fellows of the New World Symphony will perform the world premiere of Cuban-American composer Orlando Jacinto García's prohibido for string orchestra.

The 20-minute score will be presented as part of the New World Symphony's "Resonance and Remembrance" series commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and the Holocaust.

The performance, presented in collaboration with Miami City Ballet, will incorporate commissioned movement by Peruvian-American choreographer Ariel Rose, a soloist with the company. Corps de ballet members Lucy Nevin and Alexander Kaden will dance alongside the orchestra.

prohibido will also include video projections designed by Michael Matamoros, with images from the book I Never Saw Another Butterfly, a compilation of children's poems and drawings from the Terezin concentration camp. Courtney Amaro will design the lighting; the conductor will be announced in the coming weeks. The program also includes works by Chen Yi, Paul Dessene, and Brahms; tickets are available at nws.edu.

Born 1954 in Havana, Cuba, Orlando Jacinto García has been called "one of the most eminent composers in the Americas...a unique and original voice" (ADN Radio, Chile). The recipient of numerous honors and awards, he has received five Latin Grammy nominations for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. His music is played by distinguished performers worldwide, and his discography runs to 26 recordings, including twelve portrait albums.

Says García, "My works explore the counterpoint between density, timbre, registration, instrumentation, and pacing, directing the listener to focus on the minute aspects of sound. The result is a transcending of the temporal experience normally associated with many types of music and/or artwork."

prohibido has its origins in García's third string quartet, titled I Never Saw Another Butterfly, after the book of drawings and poetry by children in the Terezin concentration camp. Composed in 2018, that work won García the prestigious Walter Hinrichsen Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2022.

Soon after, García decided to create a new work for orchestra using his third string quartet as a point of departure. He describes it as "a recontextualization of the previous work achieved by adding to and completely varying the original material.... [it] includes references to the quartet but in new juxtapositions, densities, and layers with much additional new material, while utilizing the resources of the larger string ensemble."

That new material includes a spoken text written by García. Recited quietly by the players, it alludes to "many of the reasons used to repress those that are different/not in power (race, language, religious beliefs, etc.), in essence prohibiting them."

As a provision of the Walter Hinrichsen Award, prohibido is being published by Edition Peters. Future projects include a work for the National Orchestras of Costa Rica, premiering in December 2025.

Earlier this year, New Focus Recordings released La vida que vendrá, comprising five works by Orlando J. García for loadbang, the dynamic "lung-powered" quartet of Adrían Sandi (bass clarinet); Andy Kozar (trumpet), William Lang (trombone), and Ty Boque (baritone). The disc includes four electroacoustic solo pieces – one for each member of the group – plus the haunting title work written for the entire quartet.

Notes Dan Lippel of New Focus, "This is music that transforms the listening space, creating a halo of sound in each piece...the album [is] an introspective contemplation of the nature of sound and timbre unfolding at a pace that facilitates close listening." García was one of Morton Feldman's last private students, and his influence is felt in the slow pace of this music, not to mention its command of diaphanous, layered instrumental timbres. Yet García's musical language is uniquely his own, with dramatic contrasts that heighten its expressivity.

George Grella of Kill Yr Idols counted La vida que vendrá "among the finest new music releases this year." Click the button below to download or stream the album (password: 3dotsKEY).

Through more than 200 works composed for a wide range of performance genres including interdisciplinary (film, video, and dance), site specific, and works with and without electronics for orchestra, choir, soloists, and a variety of chamber ensembles, Orlando Jacinto García has established himself as an important figure in the new music/contemporary classical music world. The distinctive character of his music has often been described as "time-suspended sonic explorations," qualities he developed from his studies with Morton Feldman, among others. 

Born in Havana, Cuba in 1954, García migrated to the United States in 1961. In demand as a guest composer, he is the recipient of numerous honors and awards from a variety of organizations and institutions including the Rockefeller, Fulbright, Knight, Civitella, Bogliasco, and Cintas Foundations, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, State of Florida, MacDowell and Millay Colony, and the Ariel, Noise International, Matiz Rangel, Nuevas Resonancias, Salvatore Martirano, and Bloch International Competitions. Most recently he has been the recipient of 5 Latin Grammy nominations in the Best Contemporary Classical Composition Category (2009-11, 2015, 2021). With performances around the world at important venues by distinguished performers, his works are recorded on New Albion, O.O. Discs, CRI /New World, Albany, North/South, CRS, Rugginenti, VDM, Capstone, Innova, CNMAS, Opus One, Telos, Toccata Classics, Metier/Divine Art, and New Focus.

García is the founder and director of the NODUS Ensemble, the Miami Chapter of the International Society for Contemporary Music, the New Music Miami ISCM Festival, and is a resident composer for the Miami Symphony. A dedicated educator, he is Distinguished University Professor and Composer in Residence for the School of Music at Florida International University. https://www.orlandojacintogarcia.com.

New York City-based new music chamber group loadbang is building a new kind of music for mixed ensemble of trumpet, trombone, bass clarinet, and baritone voice. Since their founding in 2008, they have been praised as ‘cultivated' by The New Yorker, ‘an extra-cool new music group' and ‘exhilarating' by the Baltimore Sun, ‘inventive' by the New York Times and called a 'formidable new-music force' by TimeOutNY. Creating 'a sonic world unlike any other' (The Boston Musical Intelligencer), their unique lung-powered instrumentation has provoked diverse responses from composers, resulting in a repertoire comprising an inclusive picture of composition today. 

In New York City, they have been recently presented by and performed at Miller Theater, Symphony Space, MATA, and by the Look and Listen Festival; on American tours at Da Camera of Houston, Rothko Chapel, and the Festival of New American Music at Sacramento State University; and internationally in Austria, China, the Czech Republic, and Mexico.

loadbang has premiered more than 500 works, written by members of the ensemble, emerging artists, and today's leading composers. Their repertoire includes works by Pulitzer Prize winners Raven Chacon, David Lang, and Charles Wuorinen; Rome Prize winners Andy Akiho and Paula Matthusen; and Guggenheim Fellows Chaya Czernowin, George Lewis, and Alex Mincek. Visit loadbang.com.

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