EDDIE MORA (b.1965): Sulá for Orchestra (Heredia Symphony Orchestra Costa Rica; Eddie Mora), Bocetos a Yolanda for Ensemble (University Contemporary Ensemble), String Quartets No. 1 "Retrato V", No. 2 and No. 3 "JRM" (Cuarteto Latinoamericano).

Description: A Costa Rican composer who completed his musical studies in Russia, Mora achieves an interesting synthesis of Latin and European idioms in these works for strings. The quartets chart a course from characteristically Caribbean influences, notably in the dancing finale of the First, to a rugged European style, influenced by (and quoting) Schnittke in the Second, while the third puts these musical resources to programmatic use, illustrating an episode of Costa Rican history. Both Sulá and Bocetos a Yolanda refer to myths and fictions of the composer's native land, using a rich and colorful timbral palette featuring strikingly original instrumental combinations and sounds to emulate folk music and nature sounds within the basically tonal vocabulary that underpins all these approachable and vividly dramatic pieces. Sulá in particular sets up a rich, exotic sound world to frame a touching melodic elegy for Mexican violist Omar Hernández.