Wiracocha
Miguel Pesce (b. 1969)
** This piece was commissioned for the 2024 TMEA All-State Small School Mixed Choir.
Conducted by Eduardo García-Novelli.
Ron Barber, Michael Crawford, Alex Holloway, and Brooke Stehr, Percussion
Wiracocha is loosely inspired by a short story by the great Argentinian-French writer Julio Cortázar La noche boca arriba (The Night Face Up), in which the main character is immersed in dreams full of unknowns and a mix of real and unreal events.
“Structurally, the work presents three sections. With their piercing, rhythmic drive, the first and the last sections of the piece invite us to participate in an imaginary ritual during the pre-Columbian era, using a fragment of an Inca hymn in Quechua language. The middle section, with a text in Spanish, brings us to the present time, immersing in a dream-like environment.
The instruments build a sound scenery that reinforces the ceremonial ambience of the event. The piano introduces dissonant choras that function as a commentary made by a possible bystander observing from above. The work is based on the octatonic saes, while the Blis melodic rhythmic motif. The first and third sections achieve high points with the accumulation of imitative fragments, while the gisandos in the middle section help to create a hallucinatory state of mind.”
—Program notes by Eduardo García-Novelli.
