Travel Guide to Nicaragua

a world premiere from Michael Gordon

on texts of the composer, Mark Twain, and Rubén Darío

commissioned by Carnegie Hall for The Crossing
with Maya Beiser, cello

Michael Gordon's first eight years were lived at a great distance - geographically and experientially - from his life today in New York; his Eastern European parents made their home in the jungle on the outskirts of Managua, Nicaragua, where he spent his days perched in trees and eating food with his hands. 

Travel Guide to Nicaragua is his hazy memory of this strange and good life of exotic tarantulas and parrot bites. Yet, Michael's third substantial work for The Crossing reaches beyond his childhood, pondering the world of Mayans and Aztecs, and drawing on words of poet Rubén Darío and those of Mark Twain following his remarkable trip to this small, beautiful country.

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