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PORTRAIT
ALEXANDRE DA COSTA
A passion for recordings
by CAROLINE RODGERS
at only 31 years old, violinist
Alexandre Da Costa has already
recorded his sixteenth CD. This
fall, he released Fire and Blood, his
first recording with the MSO and
his first collaboration with Warner Classics. It also
marked the occasion of the Quebec launch of the
new record label Acacia, a cooperative formed by
Da Costa and other musicians.
The violinist freely admits that Fire and Blood
has become one of his favourite recordings, which
he hopes will be heard by a large
audience. When he discovered
this concerto, he quickly
phoned the composer. Michael
Daugherty, to tell him he
wanted to record it. Since then,
whenever a conductor has contacted
him to play with an
orchestra, Da Costa has tried to
get Fire and Blood on the program.
“I wanted this concerto to be
the first that I recorded with
Warner,” he said. “It’s written
in a modern style but is easily
approachable. It’s tonal, understandable,
and incorporates
elements of Mexican and folk
music. It falls somewhere
PHOTO Bo Huang
In composing Fire and Blood,
Michael Daugherty was inspired by the
Detroit Industry murals of Mexican
painter Diego Rivera, which represent
the auto industry in Detroit in the thirties.
“They inspired me to create
my own musical fresco for violin
and orchestra,” he comments
in the CD liner notes.
On a musical level, he
worked with violinists from
different musical universes
for inspiration, he
explained to LSM in a
phone interview.
“I listened to classical,
between film and contemporary music and is a good introduction to
modern music for neophytes. In my opinion, this is a good direction
to explore for contemporary music. In concert, it’s very successful.
People go home with the same enthusiasm as if they had heard a work
they’ve known for a long time, like Tchaikovsky’s concerto.”
Alexandre Da Costa feels at home in the world of recordings. “I’ve
been lucky to have people around me who deeply love recorded music
and who have communicated their passion to me, for example
Johanne Goyette of ATMA,” he explains.
For him, CD recordings are an essential element in a musician’s
career. “They serve as markers over the long term,” he said. “Concerts
are the most important, but a concert is ephemeral, whereas a disc lasts
your whole life. A recording shows the point you had reached as a musician
at a particular time. When I listen to my first recording of the
Tchaikovsky concerto from when I was 17, I could swear that it’s not
me at all! I will definitely record it again sometime, having reached a
stage where I’ve evolved enough musically to revisit works I’ve already
recorded.”
Motivated by his passion for recordings, and wanting to ensure the
success of his beloved Fire and Blood in Quebec, Da Costa was spurred
to launch the new Acacia record label. Pianist Wonny Song and conductor
Jean-François Rivest, among others, have joined him in this
venture.
“Our intention is to produce only four or five discs per year, but these
will be high quality, hand-picked projects,” he
says.
Worldwide, Fire and Blood is on the Warner
Classics label, with which the violinist has signed
a two-year contract.
“It was they who allowed this project to see the
light of day,” he says. “But I convinced them that
for Quebec, it was preferable to have a local label.
For Warner, Quebec is a very small market, and
for that reason they wouldn’t necessarily have
invested a lot of effort in promoting the disc.
Whereas we have, in Quebec, specialized labels
like ATMA and Analekta doing excellent work.
Furthermore, most of the classical discs sold in
PHOTO Yopie Prins
MICHAEL DAUGHERTY DISCUSSES HIS WORK
jazz, bluegrass and mariachi violinists
in order to explore all the parameters
of the instrument. I used musical ornamentation
evoking Mexican music. I
see my work as a composer a bit like
that of a film director. If you directed
a film on the life of Diego
Rivera and Frida Kahlo, you
would choose costumes
that are typical of their
country and their time.
This was my guiding principle.
I think that this is
the kind of work one must
do to write a concerto
that stands out.”
Canada are sold in Quebec. If we do the promotion
ourselves, we do a better job, even more so
because for distribution we
have the Universal machine
behind us.”
He even insisted that the disc
be recorded here, in Montreal,
with the MSO. The recording
took place in concert in
November 2009, under the
direction of Spanish conductor
Pedro Halffter. The CD features
two other works by Michael
Daugherty: Fla mingo, for
orchestra, and Ladder to the
moon, a concerto for solo violin,
wind octet, double bass and percussion.
LSM
TRANSLATION:
RONA NADLER
12
DECEMBER 2011 / JANUARY 2012