A LONG WALK
A new music project by JAVIER FARIAS based on the immigrant experience
In 2019 I discovered the graphic novel «Threads From the Refugee Crisis” by the British writer, Kate Evans. It deals with the arduous lives faced by principally Syrian and Iraqi refugees in the Calais Jungle, a notorious provisional encampment on the French coast meant to house and process those wanting to immigrate to England. It was this tome that moved me to include the topic of immigration in my music and inspired me to compose a new work for solo classical guitar and voice titled, «NEVER STEP BACK». The text from Evans’ book proved invaluable to me, as did the poem, “Dear Exile” by Mai Ver Dang, the work of Tracey K. Smith, and significantly, «The Devil’s Highway» by Luis Alberto Urrea, a book that chronicles the unfortunate and fatal journey of 26 Mexican immigrants trying to illegally enter the United States through the Devil’s Highway, a particularly brutal stretch of desert located in southern Arizona.
Having immersed myself in so much material on a subject that I know will always prove immediate, I decided to start a new multi-year, multi-work project called A LONG WALK as a way of raising awareness of and adding my voice to the conversation surrounding immigration.
Where we belong (2022)
Commissioned by Carnegie Hall’s Reflections of Resilience project, WHERE WE BELONG is scored for double string quartet, charango and guitar. The work features the acclaimed PubliQuartet along with a group of young Latin American immigrants, all of them students from InTempo, an organization based in Stamford, CT, that provides high-quality classical and intercultural music education to children predominantly from immigrant backgrounds and from communities underrepresented in the arts.
The premiere will take place at Carnegie Hall on June 26th, 2022.
La Voz de Monica
La Voz de Monica features the story of Monica, who left her two-year-old son in Ecuador in 2000 to make a grueling journey to Mexico where she tried to cross the border in the U.S. This trip turned into something much more ghastly than she anticipated, so much so that it nearly cost her life. Commissioned by Susan Klebanow for the UNC CHAMBER SINGERS and CAROLINA CHOIR, the piece will be premiered on November 18, 2023 at the Moeser Auditorium in Hill Hall (Chapel Hill, NC.)
Young Voices for the Future
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, this project seeks to raise awareness about the problems facing young immigrants as they leave their homes and adapt to life in the US. The work includes six new pieces that use texts taken from poems and prose written by middle and high school Latinos, all of whom are recent arrivals to the United States living in Montgomery County, MD.
Voices from Maya
VOICES FROM MAYA details the journey of Maya, who was 23 years old when escaping the war-torn Croatia in 1993 to start a new life in the U.S. The work was commissioned by conductor Gail Archer and the Barnard-Columbia Chamber Choir.
Where We Belong
A piece commissioned by INTEMPO for PlayUSA, a program of Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, WHERE WE BELONG is scored for double string quartet, charango and guitar. The work features the acclaimed PubliQuartet and students from the Stamford based after school music program, INTEMPO, an organization that provides high-quality classical and intercultural music education to children predominantly from immigrant backgrounds and communities underrepresented in the arts.
Voices (2022)
VOICES is a trilogy of works scored for mixed choir, classical and electric guitar that will form a small part of the larger A LONG WALK series. Each piece in VOICES is based on a real person and the reason they decided to leave their country of origin. The first piece, VOICES FROM MAYA, chronicles the journey of a young woman escaping war-torn Croatia and starting a new life in the U.S. The piece was commissioned by conductor Gail Archer and the Barnard Columbia Chorus and featured composer Javier Farias on electric guitar and Scott Hill on classical. The premiere took place in April 2022, in NYC.
Participating Institutions
Never step back (2020)
A 40 minute suite written for guitar and voice, depicts texts and poetry by Kate Evans, Mai Ver Dang, Tracey K. Smith and Luis Alberto Urrea.
Being in snow is an adventure.
Composer Javier Farías has led a prominent musical career writing extensively for the guitar in varying genres ranging from solo classical and electric to full guitar ensembles as well as other instrumental combinations. Farías’ music has been hailed by Classical Guitar Magazine as “top class” and “outstanding…bracing and evocative,” by The Washington Post as “haunting, lyrical, and intense,” and by Gramophone as “excellent.” His catalogue, which includes over one hundred compositions, is representative of Farías’ devotion for the guitar in addition to his ability to write chamber music with diverse instrumentation, for full orchestra and concertos, jazz ensemble, choral music, as well as with choice instruments such as the bandoneón, flamenco guitar, electric guitar, and charango.
Javier Farías has been honored by having his music performed and recorded by some of the main exponents of the guitar such as Eliot Fisk, Ben Verdery, David Tanenbaum, Joaquín Clerch Díaz, Gabriel Bianco, Eduardo Isaac, Emanuele Segre, José Antonio Escobar, Ricardo Cobo, Carlos Perez, Andy Summers—legendary rock guitarist of The Police, and premier jazz-fusion guitarist Mike Stern. His music has also been premiered in lauded venues such as Carnegie Hall, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Instituto Cervantes in New York, The Kennedy Center, Tsuda Hall in Japan, Salle Cortot in Paris, Ateneo de Madrid, and Meistersaal in Berlin among others.
In 2014, Farías was awarded a commission from the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University for a new concerto for two guitars composed for Sergio and Odair Assad and the YOA Orchestra of the Americas. He has also won first prizes in the Michele Pittaluga Composition Competition for Classical Guitar (2004), the Andrés Segovia Composition Contest (2005), and the 2 Agosto International Composing Competition (2008) with Canta la Tierra, a work for symphonic orchestra. Since 2004, Farías has been awarded funding from the Chilean Council for the Arts for more than 10 different projects in support of his composing, premieres, and recording. In 2017, he was awarded the Maryland State Individual Artist Award in recognition of the importance of his work of excellence to the cultural vibrancy of Maryland. Other notable commissions have come from L’Orchestra Filarmonica di Torino, the New England chamber choir Voce, Apollo Chamber Players, San Francisco Conservatory Guitar Ensemble, and the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra (VA), and commission funding from the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, the Inter-American Development Bank, New Music USA, and Centro Cultural de Tijuana in Mexico.
Farías’ music has also been premiered, programmed, and or recorded by Philharmonie Baden-Baden, Aspekte New Music Salzburg, The Chamber Music Society of Sacramento, Camerata Argentina de Guitarras, Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Cuarteto Latinoamericano, Quaternaglia Guitar Quartet, DuoSF, Alturas Duo, Daniel Binelli—bandoneonist of Astor Piazzolla’s sextet, and dozens of guitarists around the world, including Marcelo de la Puebla, David Veslocki, Adam Kossler, Luis Orlandini, Piraí Vaca, Romilio Orellana, Eugenio Gonzalez and Roberto Limón.
A native of Chile, Javier Farías founded the Ensamble de Guitarras de Chile in 2006; a group that brings together the most outstanding guitarists throughout Chile. In its 16 years of existence, there have been more than 60 guitarists who have participated in premiering more than 25 works by composers from Chile, Argentina, United States, France, Taiwan, Greece, and Puerto Rico that have been written for the ensemble. In July 2022, David Tanenbaum will be conducting Ensamble de Guitarras de Chile in a program, “Only in the Darkness can we see the Stars,” which will premiere four new pieces that American composers Andrew E. Simpson, Ronald Pearl, Garry Eister, and Pulitzer and Grammy winner Aaron Jay Kernis have written especially for this event.
In the academic world, Javier Farías has served as professor of composition at Escuela Moderna de Música y Danza in Chile from 2001 to 2012 where he also studied composition. With a subsequent move to Washington DC, he was Composer in Residence at the Latin American Music Center at Catholic University of America in 2013.
Javier Farías (b.1973, Santiago Chile) is a member of ASCAP. His music for guitar is published by Berben (Italy), E.M.E.C. (Spain), Doberman-Yppan, and Les Productions d’OZ (Canada). Farías publishes the remainder of his catalogue with Axial Ediciones. He currently lives in the Washington, DC area.
