Ensemble for These Times: El Tiempo Latine
Aerocade Music

A name such as Ensemble for These Times (E4TT) might suggest a large group of, say, ten to fifteen musicians, but the outfit's sixth album, El Tiempo Latine, is performed by a modest five only: three formal group members—soprano Nanette McGuinness (also its Executive Director and co-founder), cellist Megan Chartier, and pianist Margaret Halbig—plus two guest artists, violinist Lylia Guion and soprano Chelsea Hollow (E4TT co-founder and Senior Artistic Advisor David Garner doesn't play on the double-CD release but co-produced it with McGuinness). McGuinness and Hollow contribute vocals to the album, yet while they add significantly to the recording—Hollow in particular as her singing is more extensively featured—it's Chartier, Guion, and Halbig who impress most of all. The performances they deliver throughout are terrific and, in keeping with the character of the compositional material, expansive, emotive, and expressive. El Tiempo Latine would not have the impact it does without them.

What prompted this San Francisco-based company to turn its attention to contemporary Latine composers? The music it encountered while working on the fourth E4TTalbum, The Guernica Project, and conversations with Cuban-American producer/musician Kenya Autie that pointed the ensemble in the direction of nine composers from Argentina, Cuba, Mexico, and the United States: Gabriela Ortiz, Claudia Montero, José Bragato, Tania León, Angélica Negrón, inti figgis-vizueta, Gabriela Lena Frank, Carla Lucero, and Brennan Stokes.

Montero's three-part Buenos Aires en tres opens the release strongly, the instrumentalists operating at an intense level of conviction from the first moment. Characteristic of the album, the setting's range of emotion is broad, with the music alternating between sombre passages and zestful exuberance. Lovers of Piazzolla will no doubt be entranced by Montero too, whether it be by the rousing energy of “Allegro,” heartfelt melancholy of “Intenso y pesante,” or rhythmic enticement of “Decidido.” After Chartier and Halbig elevate Bragato's Milontan (also rather Piazzolla-like), McGuinness joins the pianist for the composer's two-part Dos canciones argentinas, the interjection of an engaging vocal piece a not unwelcome move. Totaling less than four minutes, “Magia Azul” and “Milagroso amor” are over quickly, however, and before you know it we're on to Ortiz's salsa-inspired Su-muy-key. There's no denying its dance dimension, but echoes of Ravel and Stravinsky also surface in a solo piano piece by a composer who trained as a classical pianist.

One of the first disc's high points is León's solemn Elegia a Paul Robeson for both the beauty of the writing and the sterling realization by the trio. Halbig then solos on the composer's also salsa-inspired Tumbao before turning to Negrón's Suen~o Recurrente No. 1 Veo carros fantasmas (“Recurring dreams: I see ghost cars”) and amplifying its Satie-influenced poignancy with sensitivity and nuance. Chartier makes the most of her own moment in the spotlight when she delivers figgis-vizueta's heavily arpeggiated the motion between three worlds—a marvel of invention—sans accompaniment. Concluding the release's first half is Frank's three-part Manhattan Serenades, a jazzy piece executed with spirited gusto and agility by Chartier and Halbig (don't miss the duo's bluesy swing in the closing movement, “Downtown”).

Before the onset of the second disc's dominant composition, Stokes' seven-part art song cycle The Unseen, we have “Sin vos” and “La revelación,” taken from Lucero's Spanish-language chamber opera Juana. Accompanied by Halbig, Hollow emotes movingly in the angst-ridden aria “Sin vos” (“Without You”) to offer a foretaste of the dynamic artistry she displays in The Unseen. Originally an aria, “La revelación” (“The Revelation”) provides one final example of the chamber trio in action, after which the song cycle appears. Stokes' E4TT-commissioned work is set to COVID pandemic-related texts by Sara Teasdale that have to do with identity, loss, illness, and isolation (alluded to by titles such as “Pain,” “The Unseen,” and “Gray Fog”). In being accompanied by piano only, Hollow's able to give full voice to the oft-pensive cycle's emotional sweep and benefit from the broad terrain encompassed by Stokes' writing.

September 2026