Album Notes

NOTICE: This CD is now distributed by Ryko and is available in retail outlets across the U.S. including Waldenbooks, Borders and Barnes & Noble. It also ships worldwide by online orders here and on Amazon.com. Thanks for your continued interest in our music!
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GRAMMY® Nominated for Best Mexican/Mexican-American Album in 2008!
Latin GRAMMY® Nominated for Best Folk Album 2007!
Featured on NPR's "Morning Edition" and PRI's "The World" in November 2007

“After 13 years in the U.S., these overachievers bring so much authenticity to the regional folk styles, so much virtuosity to the orchestral excursions (on which they play over 50 all-acoustic instruments), and so much fun to everything they touch, that you can’t help but surrender to their creativity.”— Bob Tarte, The Beat (Los Angeles)

This CD includes twelve original, all-acoustic arrangements (and five connecting interludes with an impressionistic collage of spoken interviews) that range from the traditional to the experimental, including, as its title track, a norteño version of Woodie Guthrie’s classic American folk song, sung mostly in Spanish. A song once inspired by the plight of Great Plains farmers exiled in California during the 1930s Dust Bowl Depression Era, “This Land Is Your Land” remains relevant today and speaks to America’s national debate over immigration.

ESTA TIERRA ES TUYA includes folk songs from various regions of Mexico played on over 50 authentic Mexican folk instruments meticulously recorded in high-fidelity stereo. The songs include “La Presumida,” “La Rabia,” “Jarabe Planeco,” “La Llorona,” “La Mariposa,” “Tabasco Suite,” and “Los Panaderos.” The CD also features “Eres Bella Flor,” an original composition by Music Director Víctor Pichardo written in a chilena style from Mexico’s Southwest, and “Yo Vendo Unos Ojos Negros,” a Chilean folk song played to an Afro-Mexican rhythm, a tribute to a historic migration of South American Blacks to Mexico in the 1850s.

The ensemble’s experimental forays take them into baroque music with J.S. Bach’s “Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, Second Movement in G-major” played with son jarocho instruments and a brass quintet led by CSO trumpet player John Hagstrom. They also venture into the realm of hard rock with a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Four Sticks,” an unusual piece in 5/8 time that Sones de México Ensemble performs as an energetic Aztec dance.

The album includes a booklet with song lyrics and a guide to over 50 musical instruments used to make this recording.