"In my sound world, music is not created, but discovered. The environment is explored, the space is palpated, the details are observed, and the object is experienced from different angles so that, gradually, its physiognomy is exhibited. Like an alchemist who values, evaluates, and carefully calculates his materials to make them react, my intention is to create kaleidoscopes of sounds, effervescent objects, always alive, always changing, with unique and unrepeatable gestures, full of energy, and impenetrable density".
JLH
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CD BOOKLET
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CD COVER
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COMPOSER'S BIO
YOUTUBE links
KAIROS Website
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FULL ALBUM MP3s
REVIEWS
Michele Palozzo in Percosi Musicali
"The most recent production of José Luis Hurtado by Kairos, unfolds in a furious bundle of rough acoustic timbres and massive concretions that seem to transform the scores in vividly three-dimensional, jutting surfaces. Hurtado's is an aesthetic of total gesturalism which, always aims at achieving an overwhelming catharsis, feeding with constant resolution a sonic magma that never completely cools down. In short, in the turbulent and hallucinated imaginary of José Luis Hurtado, a further and meaningful synthesis of the performative and listening paradigms that have increasingly imposed themselves in the postmodern era is realized: an elusive zeitgeist that, precisely for this reason, seems to invite us to pursue it with creative acts of eccentric radicality, apparent provocations within which new forms of sublimation are often hidden".
"José Luis Hurtado's scores create works of great freedom, complexity and luminosity. For Hurtado, that is the point, he refers to the work as never having a fixed surface but always changing, always presenting a different facet... what Hurtado chooses to write down and what he leaves out is what helps define his music. The cyclical elements of Incandescent, a piece for a twelve member amplified ensemble, result in a fascinating sequence of varied surfaces with the amplification bringing not loudness but subtlety, we can hear lots of intriguing detail. Much of the material is strictly controlled, yet the result has a remarkable freedom and luminosity.
The performances from Hurtado and from Talea Ensemble are superb. The ensemble clearly takes to Hurtado's musical landscape with a will. Hurtado's music is such that we could have this disc over again, and all the works would 'sound different' yet for the composer the essentials remain the same. Partly this comes down to how we listen to the music, the notes or the spaces in between".
Richard Hanlon in musicwebinternational
"Knowledge is power; it’s always an education to be introduced to a fresh compositional voice and Hurtado is most certainly that. I found the two recent works which each require solo piano to be the most impressive, whilst Incandescent is the most compelling of the works for larger forces, notwithstanding its ferocity and truculence. There is little doubt that the Talea Ensemble are fully engaged by this occasionally playful music- I would almost go as far as suggesting that they seem to be having a lot of fun in striving to meet some of Hurtado’s more outlandish demands. In the end Parametrical Counterpoint is probably a disc best suited to adventurous spirits and robust constitutions."
Ismael G. Cabral in elcompositorhabla
"There is an aggressiveness, a frizz and a peculiar aridity in his works that connects his vocabulary with that of the most agitated academic avant-gardes of past decades. This attitude, expressed in this way, could suggest a regressive creative positioning is, in light of (neo) modernity, radically contemporary. "
“The caged, the immured starts the listen with just piano in an unpredictable, sometimes jarring display of key acrobatics that can get bare between bursts of creative thundering... while Incandescent radiats a more ominous display of quivering strings, waves of calculated noise and an extremely atypical spirit where a dozen players balance control and freedom. Hurtado is nothing if not unpredictable, and his vision of avant-garde free jazz keeps the listener enthralled on this very flexible and entertaining 3rd solo record. "
Keith Prosk in harmonic series
"Similarly, the cyclical echo of waves of string trills of various timbres in “Incandescent” like planes of contrasting spatiality condensed to one dimension, but more disjointed than cubism, a particularly colorful suprematism, with the vitality of action painting. Underpinning it all is the superimposition of the dualistic, high and low density and dynamics in the same space, high and low tempos and registers in the same space, cosmopolitan composition with a catalytic energy for a dizzying density. "
"Parametrical Counterpoint is an eight-track CD release bringing together the often violent, manic and darting modern classical compositions of Mexican born American composer José-Luis Hurtado. The digipak cover features a brutally vivid painting of a yellow and white half cross sitting in textured blood-red paint... In theory/ on paper, it should sound like a manic mess, but instead, it’s both invigorating & rather cathartic."