Cabrillo premiere of The Prisoner approaches
- On July 26, 2017
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In News, Reviews/Press
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As its premiere performance on August 12th at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music approaches, The Prisoner and festival director Cristian Măcelaru have been previewed in the San Francisco Classical Voice, The Mercury News, Good Times, and The Santa Cruz Sentinel. Tickets (and program notes) are available on the Cabrillo Festival website.
The Prisoner to premiere at Cabrillo Festival
- On June 15, 2017
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In News, Reviews/Press
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Cristian Măcelaru, conductor and newly appointed director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, will present the world premiere of The Prisoner, a new work for bass voice and orchestra. The piece was commissioned by Măcelaru and the Cabrillo Festival and will feature renowned bass-baritone Jonathan Lemalu. The premiere performance of this 30-minute work will conclude the two week festival on August 12th, 2017.

Jonathan Lemalu, bass
The Prisoner tells the story of Adnan Latif, one of the first men imprisoned in the US Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp in 2002. Its text is drawn from Latif’s own letters, sent to his lawyer while in captivity, and from other literary sources, including poems of Rilke, Al-Ma‘arri, Rūmī and the Book of Psalms. Latif was unjustly imprisoned. Never charged with a crime, he was held at Guantánamo for more than ten years and endured daily torture and near constant abuse. Although cleared for release by several courts and military tribunals, he remained in custody until his death under mysterious circumstances in 2012. Latif’s affecting letters were collected by human rights lawyer David Remes, and his poetry is contained in the 2007 anthology Poems from Guantánamo. The Prisoner alternates the words of Latif, set to music in a dramatic narrative style, with songs reflecting on his tragic plight.
Adnan Latif’s Story
In late 2001 Adnan Latif travelled to Pakistan from his home in Yemen seeking affordable medical treatment.The 26-year-old had been experiencing neurological problems brought on by head injuries suffered in a car accident. In December Latif was caught up in a dragnet of young Arab men along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border, undertaken by bounty hunters in the aftermath of 9/11. In exchange for a reward, he was handed over to us authorities in 2002 and transferred to the newly opened Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp.

Adnan Latif (1974–2012)
While there, Latif was subjected to repeated and prolonged torture, beatings, psychological abuse and extreme deprivation. With other prisoners he participated in an extended hunger strike, during which inmates were painfully force-fed, and he attempted suicide on numerous occasions. Latif was held for almost 11 years without charge. According to documents, military tribunals had concluded multiple times that he posed no threat, and that there was no evidence to justify his continuing incarceration. He was cleared for release by officials as early as 2004 and again in 2007. A further court ruling in 2010 ordered the administration to “take all necessary and appropriate diplomatic steps to facilitate Latif’s release.” On each occasion his release was denied, first by the Bush administration and later, by the Obama administration. In September of 2012 Latif was found dead in his cell, the ninth prisoner to die at Guántanamo. An autopsy was performed but its results are classified. A year later his body was returned to Yemen, to his wife and now 14-year old son. Forty-one prisoners remain at Guantánamo today. President Trump has pledged to add to its prison population, Attorney General Jeff Sessions calling it “a very fine place.”
Măcelaru to present European première of City Scenes
- On December 28, 2015
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In News, Reviews/Press
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The wonderful young conductor Cristian Măcelaru, currently Conductor-in-Residence with the Philadelphia Orchestra, will present the European première of City Scenes on February 12, 2016 with the Romanian Radio Orchestra.
SOLI concert in San Antonio features Swimmy
- On November 05, 2015
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In Musiqa, News, Reviews/Press
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Classical Voice North America (Journal of the Music Critics Association of North America) reviews SOLI Chamber Ensemble’s October 5th opening concert, which featured a program of works by Pierre Jalbert, Anthony Brant and my piece Swimmy, narrated by Texas Public Radio’s Nathan Cone.
Al-Zand deftly embodies in music the spirit, delicacy, and subtle colors of Lionni’s illustrations (projected on a screen for this performance). Especially delicious are the rhythmically cockeyed walk of a lobster and the serpentine gliding of an eel “whose tail was almost too far away to remember.”
Tagoriana CD reviewed in Italy
- On October 21, 2015
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In News, Reviews/Press
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The September issue of La Tenda, a monthly cultural magazine based in Teramo, Italy, reviewed Tagoriana, a CD on Albany Records that includes my Tagore Love Songs. The recording features mezzo-soprano Aidan Soder, baritone Paul Busselberg and pianist Calogero Di Liberto.
…Al-Zand chiude la Tagoriana con la sua giovanile immediatezza e la sua inventiva melodica che non rinuncia alla tradizione liederistica e si compenetra perfettamente con i testi da lui scelti.
…Al-Zand closes out Tagoriana with a youthful immediacy and melodic invention that does not reject the lieder tradition and perfectly interprets his chosen texts.
SOLI perform Swimmy on Musiqa’s Opening Night at MATCH
- On October 12, 2015
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In Musiqa, News, Reviews/Press
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San Antonio’s SOLI Chamber Ensemble performs Swimmy on Musiqa‘s October 10th concert at the new Midtown Arts and Theatre Center (MATCH). A preview feature appears in the Houston Chronicle. The narrator will be actor Seán Patrick Judge. Other pieces on the program include works by Anthony Brandt, Pierre Jalbert, Marcus Maroney and Carl Schimmel. Performances of this same program will also take place in San Antonio on October 6th and 7th with narrator Nathan Cone.
Review of Paganimania in Fanfare
- On July 10, 2015
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In News, Reviews/Press
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A new review of Christopher Janwong McKiggan‘s CD Paganimania appeared in the recent Fanfare online blog. The CD features the premiere recording of Paganini Reverie.
Article in Symphony Magazine
- On June 05, 2015
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In News, Reviews/Press
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The Summer 2015 edition of SYMPHONY, the quarterly magazine published by the League of American Orchestras, features an article by Thomas May entitled A New East-West Polyphony, which highlights composers who are “drawing on their Arabic, Turkish, and Iranian roots to enrich America’s orchestral life.” The Houston Symphony’s performance of my City Scenes is mentioned, as is the work of Mohammed Fairouz, Fawzi Haimor, Mariam Adam, Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol, Kinan Azmeh, Kareem Roustom, Malek Jandali, and Reza Vali.
My First Review in Bangla
- On May 09, 2015
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In Reviews/Press
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Recently my friend, mezzo-soprano Aidan Soder, travelled to Kolkata, India on a Fulbright fellowship. She was there for research, performance and teaching—all stemming from her work on Western vocal settings of poet Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941). Tagore was a Bengali poet, writer, painter and composer—and the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. Aidan’s singing can be heard on the CD Tagoriana, a recording which includes my own Tagore Love Songs. Here’s a review in Ei Samay, the largest Bengali language daily paper, which speaks of her project and performance at Jorasanko Thakurdalan, Tagore’s ancestral home. It also (apparently) mentions me and my music—but unfortunately I can’t read any of it!