Published: January 23, 2009 09:57 am

Cuban band performing with symphony

'Rumba Sinfonica' is first half of show

BY JODEE TAYLOR
jtaylor@record-eagle.com

Tiempo Libre None/Special to the Record-Eagle

INTERLOCHEN -- A little bit of warm, sunny music can go a long way.

Interlochen gets a double dose Saturday when the Cuban group Tiempo Libre performs
"Rumba Sinfonica" with the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra. The concert begins at 7:30
p.m. in Corson Auditorium.

"The first half is going to be the Sinfonica, the second part dance," said Tiempo Libre pianist
Jorge Gomez.
"Rumba Sinfonica" was composed by Ricardo Lorenz, now an associate professor of
composition at Michigan State University's College of Music. He met Gomez at Indiana
University and "it was like we were musical soulmates."

The Sinfonica is an orchestral piece that will be performed by both the Interlochen Arts
Academy Orchestra and Tiempo Libre. Composing a symphony that integrates a seven-piece
Cuban timba group and a 90-piece orchestra had its challenges, Lorenz said.

"The band is amplified and the orchestra is non-amplified," for one thing, he said. "You have to
take that into account when composing."

Luckily, he said, Gomez and his bandmates had always dreamed of a project like this, thanks
in part to their schooling in Cuba at La Ena, a classical conservatory in Havana.

"They had to study classical music," Lorenz said, "but when they went home they played jazz,
rock, Cuban pop. It's unusual to find a Latin musician who works this well with classical
musicians, but this project has been able to work so well because of this band."

While this band is familiar with the Sinfonica, the Interlochen orchestra has never played it
with them before. The students got the music three weeks ago, Lorenz said, and there will be
two rehearsals before Saturday night's concert.

"That's the nature of the project," Lorenz said. "You have two different cultures. One culture is
the symphonic orchestra culture. In the band culture, they don't need to read the music. But
the band comes very prepared and plays very tightly," he said.

The second half of Saturday's show will be all Tiempo Libre. The group is working in an album,
"Bach to Havana," and plans to play a couple songs off that, Gomez said. It's Bach with a
timba beat.

The two-time Grammy nominated group is made up of seven musicians from the same Havana
school, Gomez said. After leaving Cuba, they ended up in different countries but they reunited
in Miami, Gomez said, and formed Tiempo Libre.

Tickets for Saturday's show are $21 for adults, $18 for seniors and $9 for students. Tickets are
available at http://tickets.interlochen.org or by calling 276-7800 or (800) 681-5920.

"Each song is different," he said. "One song is going to sound like bolera, the next like cha-
cha-cha."

The group recently signed to Sony music. The "Bach in Havana" album is due out in May.