The first-ever complete string quartet series of Mexico’s leading contemporary composer Mario Lavista (b.1943). Professor at the Conservatorio Nacional since 1970 and a member of the prestigious Colegio Nacional, he has been the recipient of multiple international awards and honours and is also Chief Editor of one of the most important music journals in Latin America, Pauta, which he founded in 1982.

He was a student of Carlo Chávez at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música in the 1960s before continuing his studies in Paris in extended and electronic techniques.

On his return to Mexico in 1970 he founded Quanta, a collective improvisation group, going on to work in electronic music in Japan and later in collaboration with other prominent musicans and artists, including the visual artist Arnaldo Coen. Influences on his music range from these interests in indeterminate aspects and extended techniques to mediaeval and Renaissance music, spirituality and religious genres, and a continuous passion for poetry.

These six string quartets share a powerful sense of atmosphere and colour, and continue the important Mexican contribution to the genre begun by Chávez and Revueltas. The relationship between Lavista and El Cuarteto Latinoamericano, recorded here, is particularly close and one of the most fruitful artistic collaborations in the history of the string quartet in Mexico. They are close friends, and Lavista has written every one of his quartets for the group since they formed in 1982.

The Cuarteto Latinoamericano is known worldwide as the leading proponent of Latin American music for string quartet. This award-winning ensemble from Mexico consists of the three Bitrán brothers, violinists Saúl and Arón and cellist Alvaro, along with the violist Javier Montiel. The Cuarteto has recorded most of the Latin American repertoire for string quartet, and the sixth volume in their cycle of Villa-Lobos quartets was double-nominated for a Grammy award in 2002.