Recording of Rajmil Fischman's Alma latina. The composer has this to say on the background of the piece, and of this piece itself: Time is a strange background against which our lives develop. Linearity is usually out of the question and memory cunningly warps and re-invents our past experience to such an extent that the latter becomes alive, threading between past and future. It has been forty years since my personal thread started, more than twenty since I left the birthplace and a long time since my last visit. During all this span - especially after leaving and finding other homes - the conglomeration of conscious and subconscious moments bubbled out, combined with new experiences and created labyrinthine inner passages in which sounds, images, smells and other sensations from different periods mixed and evolved into new forms. Music which was previously dismissed and undervalued suddenly acquired a new significance. Strong images of pain and joy amidst the contrasting richness and poverty of a South American city became representative of a historico-political situation. Taste and scent of food, combined with the physical sensation of dance movement, turned into cornerstones of thought about the essence of human condition. All of these are now part of a humble inner world, a world which is not - and never was - purely and parochially reduced to the life of a small territorial area or a capricious national entity. It belongs to a spirit which absorbs and amalgamates in an attempt to overcome plain existence, whether it is the petty problematic of home and work or the daily tragedy of uncertain survival looming over so many in this world. Indeed, it laughs and mourns, it sings, it dances to the frenzy of grief and joy. And so, this Latin soul hopes that there is still warmth and a reason to dance, that not all is lost and that, after all and in spite of thoughtless acts and dangerous ventures, life can still go on. Alma Latina was composed using Composers' Desktop Project software and a SoundScape mixing and editing suite. Final equalization was carried out on a Pro-Tools system. It was one of the pre-selected finalists in the Quadrivium Programmatic Music category at the 24th International Competition, Bourges. Performances include: Sonic Arts Conference 1998, Birmingham, UK; 5th International Symposium and Festival of the Centre for Intercultural Music Arts, London, UK; 5th Brazilian Computer Music Symposium, Belo Horizonte, Brazil; International Computer Music Conference 1998, Ann Arbor, USA; BEAST, Birmingham, UK; 8th International Electroacoustic Music festival ‘Spring in Havana 2000’, Cuba; Electroacoustic Gallery by Latin American Composers, University of North Texas, USA; selected for the International Biennial for Electroacoustic Music of São Paulo, 2000; Sonic Residues 02 - Festival of Electroacoustic Music and Sound Art, Melbourne, Australia, 2000; Simón Bolívar University, Venezuela; I Festival Electronic and Electroacosutic Music, and Music Technology, Lima, Perú; broadcasts by the National Radio of Argentina, National Radio of Israel, National Radio of Colombia and art@radio, WMBC Baltimore, Maryland, USA. An extract of Alma Latina is featured in the 1999 Computer Music Journal CD and the entire work is released in the Lontano Records Ltd label.