Miguel Farías' Estallido | Minnesota Orchestra | Thomas Søndergård

Chilean composer, writer and scholar Miguel Farías explores partnerships between music, literature and social-political events in his work, drawing heavily on the culture of his homeland. He composed Estallido ("Explosion") in 2019 during a historic social uprising in Chile, when demonstrations that began in Santiago's rail system swelled into a gathering of more than one million citizens demanding government reform, ultimately leading to a new constitutional convention. The Los Angeles Philharmonic premiered the work in March 2022. Estallido opens with a powerful outburst containing the work's primary musical material, which is then stretched, compressed, bent in pitch and layered in shifting rhythmic combinations throughout the piece. Farías employs a striking range of extended techniques and imaginative colors (including seagull-like wind effects, precisely notated pitch bends, overlapping disjunct rhythms and a pulsing rhythmic vibrato) to create complex feelings of searching, urgency and power, along with the lingering emotions of the period after societal upheaval. This initial surge of energy gradually gives way to a calming conclusion. Music Director Thomas Søndergård led the Minnesota Orchestra in this performance on May 1, 2026. This recording was produced as part of The Listening Project, an ongoing initiative to spotlight the music of historically underrepresented composers and to collaborate with a broader group of composers living today.