| Instrumentation | 2-2-2-2, 4-2-3-1, timp. + 2 perc., strings. |
| Length | 16 minutes |
| Difficulty | Hard |
| Comments | "Baja California and Altar" is an impressionistic orchestral suite in three movements, each one of them an evocation of a place in Northwest Mexico.
The movements are:
I. Dawn in the Desert of Altar (in the Sonoran desert), II. Starry Night, South of El Rosario (in Baja California)
III. Isla Raza (a bird sanctuary island in the Gulf of California).
The work was composed in 1987 and its orchestration not fully realized until 1997. Isla Raza was revised in 1999. The outer movements are for full orchestra, and the middle movement is for the string section only. |
| Sources | Score and parts are available directly from the composer:
Enrique Gonzalez-Medina
269-A West Montecito Ave.
Sierra Madre, CA 91024
tel/fax (626) 355-3958
email: joenrique@earthlink.net
web site: http://enriquegm.com |
| Extras | You may listen to mp3 files of the 1999 Xalapa SO live performance of all three movements of the work on the web site's instrumental sound samples page:
http://www.enriquegm.com/id6.htm |
| History | The work was premiered in 1997 by the Matanzas Symphony Orchestra of Cuba under the direction of Allen Gross. In 1999, with a revised third movement, it was performed by the Xalapa Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, under the direction of Eduardo Garcia Barrios. |
| Contributor | the composer |
| Other | |