Navona Records presents ANCESTRIAL VOICES, the Apollo Chamber Players’ next installment in their 20x2020 project. 20x2020 is an initiative to commission 20 new folk music-inspired...

Navona Records presents ANCESTRIAL VOICES, the Apollo Chamber Players’ next installment in their 20x2020 project. 20x2020 is an initiative to commission 20 new folk music-inspired and multicultural works by the end of the decade. This fiery release comprises four 20x2020 works from composers Gilad Cohen, Arthur Gottschalk, Malek Jandali, and Javier Farias. Gottschalk’s Imagenes de Cuba incorporates sounds and music from Cuban culture, from the Cuban national anthem to protest songs to the sounds of a busy Havana square. Cuban percussion virtuoso Adel Gonzalez joins for the final movement of the work, an exploration of historic salsa and pachanga dances. Cohen’s Three Goat Blues is inspired by the Passover prayer “Chad Gadya,” a fable that concerns a goat that falls victim to the natural laws of predator and prey. The soundscape of Javier Farias’ Andean Suite is situated on the Andean mountain region. He melds the sounds and virtuosity of a classical guitar with string quartet to evoke the ceremonial blood fight of the Peruvian Yawar Fiesta, the Altiplano (“high plains”) of the Andes, and La Diablada, the traditional dance of the Bolivian Oruro Carnival. Syrian-American composer Malek Jandali's String Quartet in E-flat Major connects Middle Eastern modes and Western classical forms. His passion for humanitarian efforts and the music of his home country emanates through expressive and powerful settings of centuries-old Syrian folk melodies, thoughtful interpreted by Apollo Chamber Players.