Marco Amadeus Jimenez

USA

7 January 2003

Scenes from a rustic wedding

"This composition was inspired by Azerbaijani folk songs, especially Deyirler ki toy olacaq, a folk song taken from Uzeyir Hajibeyli’s operetta If Not That One, Then This One. I’ve aimed to portray several “scenes” from a rustic wedding, by integrating Deyiler ki toy olacaq with several original, “folk-like” melodies against a “rustic” harmonic and rhythmic backdrop. I believe that the synthesis of folk music and classical music, such as that practiced by Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, is the “way of the future” for classical music, and sincerely hope that my composition expresses this conviction."

Marco A. Jimenez is a composer, organist, pianist, and violinist. He is in his second year at Juilliard, studying composition under John Corigliano and organ under Paul Jacobs. In 2022, Marco received the Charles Ives Scholarship for Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; Marco has won numerous awards for his compositions and has had his work premiered by The Juilliard School, Hypercube Ensemble, and the Bergamot Quartet, among others. Marco’s music has been performed along the East Coast of the United States, and in Paris, France. In 2021, he was named a Junior Fellow for the Music at the Anthology (MATA). His composition prizes include First Place in the Florida Federation of Music Clubs Junior Composer’s Contest, the John and Margaret Pierson Award for the National Federation of Music Clubs, a two-time Honorable Mention for the ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award, and a 2022 Composition winner for the National YoungArts Competition. TrevCo Music Publishing has published three of his compositions: Suite No. 1 in E minor for unaccompanied bassoon (2017), A Russian Fantasy (for woodwind quintet) (2017), and A Child’s Memories for oboe and piano (2020).