Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional De Colombia - Hecho en Casa (2022) Hi-Res

The National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia launches, through digital platforms, its new album 'Hecho en Casa', a record production that compiles the best recordings made for its documentary series 'Contra el Olvido' and which were produced during the coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19. The great novelty for this album is its recording process, since its raw material is the recordings made by each of the musicians of the Orchestra, from their homes, using the microphones of their cell phones.

Without a doubt, the cover letter of this album is its particular recording process. In this regard, maestro Olivier Grangean, musical director of the project, tells us the following: "Every week we ask the musicians to record, by themselves, at home and with the devices they have at hand, something that for a orchestra, which usually performs and records together, is totally surreal. Something we had never experienced."

The idea of ​​recording from home involved overcoming a myriad of obstacles, one of them being noise. Children crying, laughing or screaming; the neighbor's drill, the barking dog, the sirens of the ambulance that passes by the house, the tamale vendor and the beeping of the cars, among many others, constituted a true odyssey for everyone. "All the musicians had to somehow manage a home studio and learn to record themselves, and that was the great challenge of all this," concludes sound engineer Carlos Silva, in charge of the album's mastering process.

Likewise, maestro Juan Antonio Cuéllar, Manager of the Orchestra, points out that "without a doubt we have been characterized by the adaptation, the ability of each of the musicians of the National Symphony to face the challenges presented by new projects, that before the pandemic they were quite normal, and that during confinement and distancing they represented an unprecedented challenge for a symphony orchestra, and that we have more than overcome through innovation and the struggle to stay current”.

In the post-production process of this album, the idea was worked on that the sound of the Orchestra should resemble as if it were on the real stage. This is how the mixing engineer Mauricio Cano explained it: “We managed to hit the reverberation point to achieve that great theater atmosphere and make it feel like the Orchestra is there, up on stage, giving its best and in total union with its director who of course was in another part of the world due to the circumstances that we already know”.

'Hecho en Casa' also features the collaboration of internationally renowned artists such as the cellist Santiago Cañón-Valencia, the pianist Eduardo Rojas, the violinist Julián Gil, the bass-baritone Valeriano Lanchas, the soprano Lina Marcela López and the vocal ensemble French Les Métaboles directed by Léo Warynski, who were recorded remotely, achieving exceptional results.

Regarding the music that is part of the album, there are famous works by great composers such as Beethoven, Verdi, Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Berlioz, among others, and Colombian composers such as Diego Vega, Adolfo Mejía and Luis Fernando Franco; music that will undoubtedly be to the delight of anyone who wants to listen to this particular and memorable production.

“We still don't know how far this project is going to go, we don't know the scope it will have. What we do know is that for the first time an orchestra has dared to experiment” expresses Juan Jacobo Restrepo, composer and percussionist of the National Symphony, who was in charge of the album's editing process.

Finally, the teacher Juan Antonio concludes with great enthusiasm: “We did it! We made possible something that was not possible for a symphony orchestra”.