Javier Contreras: Works For 2 Guitars – Dúo Sudamericano

This album showcases recent works for two guitars by the Chilean composer and guitarist Javier Contreras. He is joined by fellow Chilean guitarist and pedagogue, José Antonio Escobar – a decisive figure in Contreras’s musical development – to explore the composer’s inventive harmonic and cosmopolitan influences, which range from South American folk music to jazz. The Sonata for Two Guitars evokes the uniquely versatile sirilla dance in a work that marries introspection with vitality and virtuoso flourish. Elsewhere, Patagonian folkloric elements, exotic dances, high-speed dialogues and exquisite colours are conjured up in music of subtlety and energy.