Auras in memoriam Ramón Ramos

Auras in memoriam Ramón Ramos (2014) for piano, using extended techniques.

Through the concept of Aura, understood as the luminous radiation that surrounds to objects or people in the form of energy halo, I wanted to make a personal tribute to who was my dear Maestro of composition, the recently deceased Spanish composer Ramón Ramos (1954-2012), understanding this Aura as a metaphorical reference to the legacy that the Valencian (Spain) composer has left us through his work, and with it a recognition of his memory and to the persistence of his music, and thus, of his Aura.

In this way, the work shows the concept of Aura through organic mutations and blurring musical motives, sound tails, resonances, extra-pianistic timbres as from another dimension obtained by employing various extended techniques, etc., which are based on gestures and characteristic musical elements of the particularly language of the homaged composer, derived from some of his best-known works (Armagedon, Passacaglia, Concerto for cello and Orchestra, Poculum Amoris, El Exterminador, Après moi, Remor de claredats, Ricercare...), whose remembrance is transfigured into a series of six light radiations in the form of sound Auras in memoriam Ramón Ramos.

The piece is specially dedicated to its petitioner, the pianist Miguel Álvarez-Argudo, and to the memory of homaged composer, Ramón Ramos Villanueva. And was premiered by pianist Miguel Álvarez-Argudo on May, 18^th 2015 at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía of Valencia (Spain), at the concert series of XXXVII ENSEMS International Contemporary Music Festival of Valencia (Spain).

(Héctor Oltra-García, 28/VII/2014)