Suite Insular, consists of five character pieces evoking Isla de la Juventud, the island where the author spent her formative years. Inspired by 19th-century Cuban piano traditions, these short works showcase Carvajal’s insightful re-imagining of the style. Ultimately, the piece establishes a dialogue between the past and present, offering a distinctive re-interpretation of historical musical forms.
Tres Miniaturas, the first work composed by the composer, while still frequented piano studies at the National Art School under the tutelage of master Andres Alen. Three short simple character pieces for piano teaching for children and adolescents. These pieces are facing technical aspects typical of the early years of study of the instrument. The first, "Reflection" is inspired by The Little Book of Anna Magdalena Bach, simple piece, allegra, polyphonic character. The second, "Cantilena" cantabile slow, expressive and melodic. The third, "Guajira", dance feature, allegra, popular character. This work, available to teachers and students proposing the extension of the educational experience inside and outside the context scholastic, with an open view of other cultures and traditions.
En Tres, is an experimental composition that engages in an almost ironic dialogue with a mystical and sensual instrument. Pushing the boundaries of sound, the work divides the instrument into three distinct sections—each played independently—before gradually reuniting them until the instrument is restored to its traditional form.
Winner of First Prize unanimously in the International Women Composers of Venice, in 2004.
Winner of First Prize unanimously in the International Women Composers of Venice, in 2004.
Feketék. Carvajal wrote, in 2003, a piece for guitar which constitutes her way of paying homage to creators with whom she had shared some artistic affiliation without ever abandoning her essential beliefs. Feketék revisits her musical minituristic side and bases itself in intervallic geometric connections which recreate melodies originating from ritual songs, Yorùbá and Bantú music and belonging to the Afrocuban repertoire. Carvajal presents us with structures and fragmented motifs through these six miniatures.
Identidad, draws inspiration from chants of Afro-Cuban and Hispanic origin, woven into a set of seven movements that contrast in duration, tempo, character, and expressive spirituality. This duet seeks to offer a luminous symbiosis of instrumental timbres, showcasing the full expressive, technical, and sonic capabilities of the instruments.
Totum Revolutum. String quartet is strongly characterized by the influence of Cuban country music. It is a reinterpretation of "Guajira - are" genre rhythms that alternate three four six eight, lilting, catchy style and invite to dance. This string quartet, through a process of reworking, typical of the genre developed melodies in counterpoint, which fall as opposed to harmonic dissonance and contemporary sounds. Transported to the ropes, a certain loyalty to a remembrance instrumental sound of the guitar, the lute and the three instruments representative of the genre.
Suite Caribeana. A charming and festive suite of five dances by Cuban composers Manuel Saumell and Ignacio Cervantes, arranged and adapted for Requinto (E-flat Clarinet) and Piano by Ailem Carvajal-Gómez. The movements are: La Quejosita, El pañuelo de Pepa, La camagüeyana, Los delirios de Rosita, and Los muñecos.
KaiKro is a work for bassoon, percussion and three metronomes that plays with the concepts of time and tempo. The Greeks had two words to define time: Kairos, that refers to the ideal or opportune time, and Kronos, which represents the chronological time. KaiKro is a single movement work, with a duration of approximately 5 minutes. The bassoon, as a solo instrument, dialogues with the rhythmic and timbral atmospheres of the percussions. The piece is based on an ostinato of three metronomes in different agogics that from the beginning to the end of the movement will mark a persistent interplay of time and counter time.
EScaleno is inspired by Canto X of Dante's Inferno, drawing on the stark expressive tension of the heretics; it takes inspiration from Dante the politician—persecuted, condemned, and exiled in a marvelous world of his own fantasy. The work is divided into three miniatures of around 5 minutes each. The first, "ESpatrio", is based on a gestural cell that defines the movement through its rhythmic character, sustaining a relentless expressive tension. The second, "ESilio", contrasts with the first through an abstract atmosphere created by the indeterminacy of the lines and a colorful use of timbre, which serves as the movement's central element. The third and final piece, "ESodo", combines the powerful rhythmic character of the first—condensed into stubborn chords in the piano part—with the bright, vibrant color of the clarinets in the central section of the composition.
Sombras is inspired by madness and terror, a recurring theme in the life of composer Robert Schumann. It draws inspiration from his piano work Thema mit Variationen or Ghost Variations in E-flat major, WoO 24—one of Schumann's final compositions, written in 1854 just before his commitment to an asylum, and today one of his least performed and disseminated works. Sombras has a duration of approximately 10 minutes. The piece creates a dialogue among the three performers, generating ghostly, subtle shadows of timbres and atmospheres over a nearly invisible pedal ostinato built on two fundamental notes: E-flat and B-flat. It features a dark, melodic clarinet; a prepared piano evoking the sound of a masked harpsichord; and an extensive percussion setup that disperses veiled rhythmic and timbral textures.
Ailem Carvajal‘s first composition to experiment with sound manipulation was “GOTAS” (1996). Inspired by Pierre Schaeffer‘s acousmatic experience, she recorded six drops and used various techniques to transform them into a piece lasting over six minutes. This piece, composed for tape in Havana at the EMEC – a studio for electroacoustic and computer music founded by her teacher Carlos Fariñas – was one of her early works. It laid the groundwork for her future electroacoustic compositions, establishing the soundscape that Carvajal blends into the enduring and ever-present memory of Havana.
Resonancias, this work finds its inspiration at the poem Lutum, by the cuban poet Dulce María Loynaz (Cervantes award of literature in 1992). It is characterized by the contrast and difference of sonorous gestures between the clarinet and the tape, findind on the poetic content the settlement and dialogue between two instruments. The tape recreates and reproduces phonemes, vowels, consonants and words that, through an spectral analysis, alowed me to stablish an harmonious field for the melodic and harmonic sequences of the clarinet. Madrid (LIEM - CDMC) in 1999 and the première was in charge of the clarinetist R. Heaton in the VII computing and musical electronics conference of the Centre for the contemporary music broadcasting of Madrid in the 2000's edition and performed afterwards in bass clarinet version in Barcelona and Ireland by the clarinetist H. Sparnaay and in Italy by Davide Bandieri, Marco Ignoti and Simone Simonelli.
Eón for E-flat clarinet and tape ( 2009) picks up the thread of an aphorism of Loynaz and recreates a biographical sketch of a city: La Habana, surrounded by sound, noise and hustle and bustle. The image endeavours to show us the contrasts which lie between the colourful idyll, the sensuality which awakens the intense and lush vegetation and its light by utilizing the diverse sounds which envelop the daily occurrences and comings and goings of people who are incessantly moving and who throw their voices and steps around in a vertiginous rhythm of rumba, thus making their habitat a reflection of its time and its ceaselessly flowing waters. The majestic finale harmoniously reunites the differences and settles the comparison between tape and clarinet, joining in one unique gesture the lyrical clarinet to the subtlety found in the magic which enshrouds, in unity, the sonorous landscape of music, poetry and dance.
“SILHOUETTES – Behind Ana Mendieta’s Footprints“, pays tribute to the artist Ana Mendieta. It explores the process of displacement, transforming traces into actions and creating bridges that unite and connect. It recreates and permeates certain symbols and aspects of Afro-Cuban ritual practices. The electroacoustic fabric combines and incorporates elements of nature, ritual chants, body sounds, and Afro-Cuban percussive rhythms of Yoruba and Bantu origin, associated with the primitive and sacrificial rituals of Cuban spiritism. The dialogic combinations of brief, fluid gestures – regrouped and fragmented – amalgamate into a true heterophonic texture, rich in overlapping contrapuntal elaborations.
Winner of the CINTAS Fellowship Award in the USA in 201. World premiere at the Havana International Festival of Contemporary Music, November 8, 2019
Winner of the CINTAS Fellowship Award in the USA in 201. World premiere at the Havana International Festival of Contemporary Music, November 8, 2019
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Los balcones de Madrid
by Carlos Cremata Musica: Ailem Carvajal (1992) Cuba. |
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La terra desolata
by Andreina Garella Musica: Ailem Carvajal (2017) Parma, Italy |
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Aide
by Andreina Garella Musica: Ailem Carvajal (2018) Parma, Italy |
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Il rifugio della sabbia
by Andreina Garella Musica: Ailem Carvajal (2019) Parma, Italy |
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Io non ho posto
by Andreina Garella Musica: Ailem Carvajal (2020) Parma, Italy |
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Straordinarie
by Andreina Garella Musica: Ailem Carvajal (2021) Parma, Italy |
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Mute d'accento
by Andreina Garella Musica: Ailem Carvajal Chiesa San Ludovico di Parma Festival Verdi Off di Parma (2022) Parma, Italy |
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Vladimiro, Estragone e i loro cugini.
by Andreina Garella Musica: Ailem Carvajal Teatro Cavallerizza di Reggio Emilia Teatro Magnani di Fidenza (2023) Parma, Italy |
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- Sacramento schort film by Hilda Hidalgo (1993) Cuba-Costa Rica.
- Detrás del velo short film by Elba Ríos (1992) Cuba-USA
