American composer Miguel del Aguila was born 1957 in Uruguay. He moved to the US in 1978 and received his
B.A. from the San Francisco Conservatory. He then traveled to Vienna to further
his musical studies. After ten years there, during which time he was active as a
composer, pianist, conductor, and music teacher, he
moved to southern California in 1992.
Numerous premieres of his works followed, and in 1994 local critics chose him
“resident music man of the year” (Los Angeles Times) and to “cap the list of our top 10 people to watch”
(The Star). He was honored with a Kennedy
Center Friedheim Award in 1995 and several California Arts Council Artist in
Residence Awards from 1996 through 2000. Mr. del Aguila has recently taken up
permanent residence in New York City. His catalog of over 70 compositions
includes operatic, orchestral, choral, solo, and chamber works, as well as music
for theater and television. His
orchestral works have been recently commissioned/ performed by the Welsh BBC Symphony, Odessa Philharmonic,
Budapest Youth, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Tucson, San Antonio, Santa Barbara, Long
Beach town, Ventura, and New West Symphony orchestras, New York’s Cosmopolitan
Symphony, New Juilliard Ensemble, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, American Music
Ensemble–Vienna, Collegium Novum Zurich, Cabrillo, and the Ojai Camerata and
Bach Camerata. The long list of
performers of del Aguila’s chamber music includes renowned European, Asian and
American ensembles and soloists, as well as members of such orchestras as the
Berlin, Vienna, Oslo, Dresden, and Moscow Philharmonics.
Conga-Line in Hell is an extremely effective orchestral tour de force, one which incorporates an almost non-stop virtuoso piano solo and a large percussion section that includes conga drums, timbales, police whistles, cow bells, bird whistles, and wind machine. The meters change almost constantly, adding to the effect of instability and nervousness. The form of the work is ABA, where the middle section provides a respite before the final onslaught of sound. Mr. del Aguila writes:
“Conga-Line in Hell began in my imagination as the visual image of an endless line of dead people dancing through the fires of hell. I gradually started hearing the music, and Dante’s Paolo and Francesca da Rimini story soon became part of the scene. This inferno was to me humorous, sarcastic, grotesque and also terrifying.
I rely mainly on the dramatic and expressive qualities of rhythm to convey the evil forces that govern my imaginary hell. As thematic material I primarily use rhythmic claves as they are used in Latin American music — a sort of “rhythmic tonality” to which harmony and melody must conform. The … pattern of the Conga dance beats obsessively throughout the piece and is at times distorted into a 13/16 rhythm.”
Conga was premiered by the Ventura County Symphony (now the New West Symphony), conducted by Boris
Brott, on October 8, 1994.