Jean-Marie Machado has always had a taste for gateways, boundaries crossings and musical adventure. One look (or rather one listening...) at his discography, if necessary, is enough to be won over, since the trio that saw him burst onto the stage up to ‘Impulse Songs’, ‘Vibracordes’, ‘La Fete Bobby’, ‘Andaloucia’, ‘Fiesta Nocturna’, and many other transmutations.

‘Pictures for Orchestra’ (a record today but previously a concert programme) is a kind of accomplishment of this particularly atypical and transversal journey for the ‘Danzas Orchestra’, a flexible ensemble of consistent quality. Besides the quality of the writing, what is striking at first are the outstanding performers: exceptional instrumentalists, high-flying musicians and improvisers well accustomed to the extensive possibilities of music. The music spreads its wings among different worlds: with the memory of Robert Schumann, and also of the concert performer Catherine Collard, with whom Jean-Marie Machado studied; elsewhere it’s a whiff of the Balkans, or the madness of flutes and rhythms that takes us further East; or even, towards the West, a world a la Piazzola reminiscent of the meeting between the Argentinean composer and bandoneon player with the baritone saxophone player of Gerry Mulligan.