We all keep certain sounds that decorate our childhood. Whether it is the jingle of an ice cream truck — or, in my case, the whistle of an afilador — they resound perennially fresh in our memory. Those who grew up in Latin America are well acquainted with the immediately recognizable scales of an afilador. Playing a whistle or flute called a chiflo, the afilador bikes from town to town with their equipment attached to the handlebars, attending to the dull knives and razors of the residents.

I was born in a small village in the Tiétar Valley, surrounded by a mountain range in Spain called Sierra de Gredos. Until I was seven, I used to hear the sound of the knife sharpener every week. Although this profession has been disappearing, the afilador was for many generations part of the natural sound world of all of the villages in the valley. I have been living in the United States for almost half of my life now, but last year I was finally able to spend a whole month in my hometown. During a walk, I heard the chiflo of the knife sharpener in the distance. I hadn’t heard one in twenty years. I found myself following the music through the streets, radiating with a sensation of intactness, a wholeness which now exists for me only in flashes of scent and sound.

In this work, the music begins with a breath of fresh air, seeking to float above everything earthbound, gathering perspective from a bird’s eye. The clarinet then starts imitating the distant melismas of a sharpener's whistle, getting closer and closer. The afilador as a musical idea is intended to appear as a call to come back to presence; to snap out of our mental noise, and from there, perhaps, to be ushered immediately into memory and meaning. After the first iteration of the afilador theme, the music becomes almost like a mantra. Drifting through an intense ice storm where all the elements eventually align, we hear the sound of bells — typically played in small villages when someone passes away. The ending returns to the abundant color of the valley, and represents a transformation, turning tragedy and hardship into as much beauty and warmth as possible.

This work was written in memory of my brother, Diego Casarrubios García. Afilador is a Chicago Symphony Orchestra commission for MusicNOW and it was premiered at the Symphony Center in 2023.

– Andrea Casarrubios