Marko Ruždjak: La Frontera – Poema en varios metros, idiomas, y estilos for Soprano and Chamber Orchestra

Commissioned in 2006 by the Zagreb Music Biennale, Marko Ruždjak’s composition La Frontera ‒ Poema en varios metros, idiomas, y estilos for soprano and chamber orchestra is imbued with textual-semantic elements embodied in the poetry of four authors from different climates and periods ‒ the 20th-century American scientist of Mexican origin, Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa, the 17th-century Mexican nun Juana Inés de la Cruz, the 12th-century French troubadour from Provence, Beatriz de Dia, and the 19th-century American poet Emily Dickinson.

The title of this pro-feminist-oriented work of the recognizable compositional expression of Marko Ruždjak is the same as that of the autobiographical literary work of Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa, about life and growing up on the border between the United States of America (Texas) and Mexico, and according to the composer, it refers more to the border area than to the demarcation, thereby breaking down and transcending the notion of the border as an inviolable line, while simultaneously suggesting the possibility of its transgression.

The composition was premiered at the Music Biennale Zagreb in 2007 by soprano Davorka Horvat and the Cantus Ensemble, conducted by Luca Pfaff, and for it Marko Ruždjak was awarded the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Award for the field of musical art.

(Bojana Plećaš Kalebota)