Label: Creel Pone

Olly Wilsonより始まった、多くのコンピレーションやアンサンブル参加の音源がありながらも、ソロアルバムは一度もリリースされなかった作曲家たちに焦点を当てたシリーズ"C.P.サブシリーズ"の第2弾作品。今回はベネズエラ出身の作曲家Alfredo Del Monacoを特集。1974年にコロンビア大学で音楽博士号を取得、Mario Davidovsky、Vladimir Ussachevskyといった偉人に師事、在学中には同大学の電子音楽センターで創作を行い自身の作曲の講演なども行なった人物。お馴染みのCRIの1974年コンピや、ケージやシェルシも収録されたオランダAttaccaの94年コンピなど、広い年代の出版物をカバーした充実の編集です。





November 2025; second offering (following the extremely well-received volume of Olly Woodrow Wilson's music) in this C.P. sub-series dedicated to the work of figures whose Avant-Electronic pieces were strewn out across a myriad regional compilations and ensemble/performer surveys, having never had a single unifying solo release to their name, focusing here on Venezuelan Composer Alfredo Del Monaco.

Alfredo del Mónaco was born in 1938 in Caracas, Venezuela. He studied music with various instructors, including Primo Casale. In 1961 he graduated with a law degree from the Andrés Bello Catholic University. Del Mónaco obtained several records of Electroacoustic Music from Europe, and subsequently became interested in this kind of music. In 1966 he composed his first works of this type by using the Music Phonology Studio of the National Institute of Culture and Fine Arts (INCIBA). In 1968 he composed “Cromofonías II,” with which he gained an entrance into the Di Tella Institute in Buenos Aires, but he never attended that institution because the scholarship money ran out.

After composing Cromofonías I during 1966-1967 and Estudio Electrónico I during 1967-1968, he moved to New York to study and work at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center from 1969 to 1974. There he composed Metagrama for tape in 1969-1970. The piece del Mónaco composed for Venezuelan choreographer-dancer Sonia Sanoja in 1970, Tres Ambientes Coreográficos para Sonia Sanoja, included Metagrama as one of its movements or "ambients."

In 1974, he received a doctorate in music at Columbia University, where he studied composition with Mario Davidovsky and Vladimir Ussachevsky. During this time he worked in the electronic music center of that university and gave a conference about his compositions at the University of Buffalo. The following year he returned to Venezuela, where in 1977 he composed “Tupac Amarú,” which has become his most well-known work. Among his honors are the Venezuelan National Music Prize (1968 and 1999) and the Tomás Luis de Victoria Prize (2002). His music was performed twice at the Inter-American Music Festival in Washington, DC (1974 and 1980) and three times at the ISCM World Music Days. Del Mónaco died in Caracas in 2015.

Del Mónaco also composed: Estudio electrónico II for tape in 1970; Alternancias for violin, viol, cello, piano and electronic sounds on tape in 1971; Dualismos for flute, clarinet, trombone piano and electronic sounds on tape in 1971; Syntagma (a) for trombone and electronic sounds on tape in 1971-1972; Trópicos for tape in 1972; and Estudio electrónico III, also for tape, in 1974, when he finished his doctoral thesis based on this same electronic music work.

This set comes as a single disc housed in a six-panel booklet (each covers the artwork & relevant details/liners of Del Monaco's contributions) with a double-sided Portrait inserted as the front cover. This bodes well for successive volumes!