Stealing time B is the second piece in the Stealing time cycle, a set of four works for varying ensembles that share a common concern: the manipulation of musical time as a metaphor for the passage of time, memory, and its inevitable erosion. “Stealing time” here suggests a break from linear narratives, opening spaces of fluidity, acceleration, and recursive motion — a temporality that moves forward, yet paradoxically can fold back upon itself. It is a search for non-directed linearity, an open path that suggests more than it asserts.

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In Stealing time B, the point of departure is not only musical but also cultural and historical. The piece delves into the world of the marimba, specifically the marimba de chonta, a traditional instrument central to the Afro-descendant communities of Colombia’s Pacific coast. Descended from the African gyil and the later Mesoamerican marimba, the marimba de chonta is not merely an instrument — it is a living memory, a vehicle for oral transmission, a symbol of identity. Its tuning — non-tempered and closely linked to traditional women’s singing — stands in stark contrast to the chromatic marimba increasingly taught in academic settings.

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This work explores the tension between two conceptions of the same instrument: the traditional and the modern. This tension is not only acoustic or timbral but symbolic. It represents the broader struggle between a culture rooted in community and one increasingly shaped by homogenization. Without ethical judgement, Stealing time B seeks to give voice to this duality through listening: the marimba as a medium for a memory that is fading, transforming, and fighting not to disappear.

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Through the use of electronics and timbral exploration, the piece constructs a sound space in which musical time becomes a metaphor for social and cultural time — time that flows but also fragments, accelerates, and contracts, like the history of communities striving to preserve their identity.