Manuel Bonino, Carmen Ojeda, Juan Pablo Alemán & Cristina Naranjo - Manuel Bonino: Cantos de amor y muerte (2025) Hi-Res

With “Cantos de amor y muerte,” composer Manuel Bonino presents an extraordinary retrospective spanning more than two decades of his artistic work. The selection of works, composed between 2001 and 2024, offers a fascinating insight into Bonino's musical development and his unique musical language.

Born in Gran Canaria, the composer and improviser combines influences from classical music, jazz, electronic music, and Canarian folklore in his music. Central themes are timbre, transformation, and emotion, always driven by the desire to touch the audience directly. Almost all of the pieces are linked to Aires de Lima, a folk melody from his childhood, whose interval relationships run like a thread through Bonino's work.

The compositions collected on the album range from the impressionistic sound poetry of Tres nocturnos urbanos, inspired by nighttime images of his hometown Las Palmas, to the experimental piano miniature Una reflexión and El niño enfermo, a moving homage to Antonio Padrón's painting of the same name. With Diphda, Bonino explores the freedom between improvisational scope and electronic sound design, while Aires de Lima makes his deep connection to Canarian tradition audible.

The title work Cantos de amor y muerte (2022) is Bonino's most personal piece, a sonic catharsis following the loss of his father. The concluding Cantos (2024) combine influences from Ravel with jazz and rock elements, adding a new, unexpectedly humorous facet to the collection.

Manuel Bonino (born 1974) is professor of composition at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música in Madrid. His works are performed internationally, including at the Wiener Konzerthaus, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, and Auditorio Nacional de España, and are now documented on 17 CDs.

With this release, Bonino opens up a deeply personal cosmos between love, memory, loss, and transformation—a journey through soundscapes full of intensity and emotion.