Zyman has been a member of the faculty at the Juilliard School since 1987 (as well as at Vanderbilt University for the last three years) and the composer of works performed widely, internationally.\u00a0 His more than seventy published compositions include chamber music, sonatas, symphonies, many concertos, vocal music, and a film score. \u00a0\u00a0Their variety is impressive, from wind ensembles to trombone octets.\u00a0 \u00a0A native of Mexico City, he was educated first in Mexico, and then received graduate degrees from the Juilliard School. His American teachers of composition include David Diamond and Roger Sessions.\u00a0 The recipient of numerous honors, they include the Mozart Medal and both the Mexican Most Outstanding Composer of the year (1992), and the Medal of Merit in the Arts (2014).<\/p>\n
Many of his works are manifestly in a rhythmically complex and chromatically dense twentieth-century academic style\u2014after all he was a student of Sessions and Diamond.\u00a0 But, he is equally master of an innate lyricism.\u00a0 To add to his flexibility of expression, he occasionally enjoys infusing his compositions with a clear reference to traditional Mexican musical style.\u00a0 And that is clearly what Encuentros<\/em> is all about.<\/p>\n Commissioned by the Mexican TV network, Televisa, Encuentros<\/em> was part of the music for the Mexican Pavilion at the Seville World Fair of 1992.\u00a0 The charge to Zyman was to compose a work that was clearly \u201cMexican\u201d in its incorporation of traditional musical elements, but which was also\u2014in the words of the composer\u2014to convey a sense of \u201cmodernity, progress, and optimism.\u201d\u00a0 But not<\/u> to be an example of \u201cmodern\u201d musical style!\u00a0 And so it is.\u00a0 Driven with Zyman\u2019s characteristic rhythmic verve\u2014but using traditional Mexican syncopated dance rhythms as ostinatos, the orchestration is replete with colorful allusions to Mexican musical traditions.\u00a0 Whether Mariachi trumpets, marimbas, harp, or flute and tuba features, the infectious tapestry of colors propels it.\u00a0 Underlying it all are the ubiquitous traditional native instruments of the percussion section, including claves, guiro, maracas, and more.\u00a0 The energetic opening and closing sections feature a parade of musical ideas, and bookend a central section that an apt example of the composer\u2019s gift for contemplative lyricism.\u00a0 It\u2019s all an entertaining delight and complete evidence of the stylistic flexibility of an outstanding composer.<\/p>\n –Wm. E. Runyan<\/p>\n \u00a92022 William E. Runyan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"program_note_tax":[160],"class_list":["post-388","program_note","type-program_note","status-publish","hentry","program_note_tax-samuelzyman"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note\/388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/program_note"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"program_note_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note_tax?post=388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}