Album Notes

Carmen Helena Tellez has been called "a quiet force behind contemporary music in the United States today" by the journal Sequenza 21. In this album she conducts the Indiana University Contemporary Vocal Ensemble in a collection of wonderful choral compositions by Chilean composer Juan Orrego Salas. A student of Aaron Copland, Orrego Salas has enjoyed a long career that has spanned many of the musical streams of the 20th century. The collection represents some of his early works, composed in a delicate and elegant Latin American Neo-Classic style evoking music of the Spanish Renaissance. The "Madrigales,"by contrast, demonstrate a more modernistic and virtuosic handling of the choral ensemble. "La Ciudad Celeste," writen in 1992 to celebrate the Evangelization of the New World, is an ecstatic representation of the end of time, showcasing an array of brilliant orchestral colors. Eminent conductor Jan Harrington conducts the "Canticos Sagrados" for chorus and ensemble, a intimate and mystical collection of choral prayers.