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Santiago

from Dr. Merengue by Paul Austerlitz

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“Santiago”

During the early twentieth century, middle and upper-class composers of European-influence art music became inspired by merengue. Composer Julio Alberto Hernández remembers that merengues heard in the distance piqued his interest:

I lived in Santiago, in the center of the city. Every night, every night, I heard merengues being played in the barrios that surround the city: the tambora and the güira, especially the tambora. I gradually became interested in composing this.

Written for solo piano as a light classical composition intended for listening rather than for dancing, his “Santiago" is based on folk merengue themes. My version augments the piano with tambora, güira, and clarinet. In this context, my jazz-tinged embellishments take on a ragtime flavor, which is not surprising, since European set dances influenced African American music in a way not dissimilar to the way that the contredanse-influenced merengue. This piece features Dr. Angelina Tallaj on piano. It originally appeared on my album entitled Journey (Innova Records).

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from Dr. Merengue, released March 27, 2019

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Paul Austerlitz Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Dr. Paul Austerlitz is Coordinator of Jazz and Professor of Music and Africana Studies at the Sunderman Conservatory of Music, Gettysburg College. He combines his creative work as a musician with ethnomusicological research on Afro-Caribbean music. Austerlitz is especially active in blending the music of the Dominican Republic and Haiti with jazz. ... more

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