A short course about chamber music influences
By Bob Kelly July 25, 2008 San Miguel de Allende
Musical Demonstration
Ken Bichel
Mon, July 28, 7pm
Teatro Ángela Peralta
50 pesos
Lecture & Concert
Carlos Chavez String Quartet
Lecture by Jesus Echevarria
Thu, July 31, 7pm
Free tickets available at Teatro Ángela Peralta,
Chamber Music Festival Office, Bellas Artes
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An Emmy-winning composer, a contemporary Mexican musicologist and composer and one of the country’s leading music critics will set the stage with lectures and demonstrations for the thirtieth annual summer chamber music festival. |
Barbara Porter, president of the festival board, could cause a stampede to the box office with her reactions to a lecture and demonstration last year by pianist and composer Ken Bichel, who will appear July 28:
“Give him a note, any note, and Ken Bichel will compose a tune, a concerto, a sonata on the spot. No, that’s too easy. Give him three numbers and he’ll compose a complex symphonic piano solo. There’s nothing to it for the composer-arranger-improvisational musician and lecturer. The notes simply form near-geometric patterns that sound as if written by the great masters of musical literature.
“Too old to be called a prodigy, Bichel is simply a phenomenal musician. His lectures draw packed houses and his fans are legion, ready to stand up and cheer after every piece. This exciting feat of musicianship rolls off his fingers and out of his fertile mind as if it was normal conversation. And all done with a running commentary that would place him in a comedy club competition.”
Juilliard-trained, Bichel won an Emmy for TV compositions. Tickets for Bichel’s lecture at 7pm in the Teatro Ángela Peralta are available for 50 pesos.
Jesús Echevarria, one of Mexico’s leading contemporary composers, appears at a free concert July 31 with the Carlos Chavez String Quartet. Festival board member Ken Morrow supplied this preview with the help of Alain Durbecq of the Chavez quartet:
“It will be an adventure through the history of continental musical styles that have affected the music of Mexico and the native Mexican musical styles that have found their way across the pond back to the continent. This will include references to some of the stopping-off points between the two such as the ‘spice bar’ of the Caribbean Islands. It will also touch on the process of synthesis that occurred through this process i.e., how the two cultures—classical and popular—were synthesized into new forms on both sides of the Atlantic.
“Jesús is doing his master’s degree thesis on this subject and the talk will be an outgrowth of his research. Jesus, a popular lecturer, brings a great deal of humor to his insights on music and culture in general. This will not be an academic dissertation, he assures us.
“The lecture at 7pm will be followed by a performance of ‘Cantes Huastecos,’ which Echevarria wrote in 2002, using European and Meso-american elements, classical and contemporary forms, as well as both art-based and popular-based cultural motifs. The composition is based, as its name implies, on traditional Huastecan songs. It will be performed by the Chavez quartet along with Lourdes Ambriz, soprano, and Ernesto Anaya, tenor, and with Jesús himself on the jarana—a traditional Mexican guitar-like instrument.
“The Chavez Quartet performed at the world premiere last February of Echevarria’s first string quartet, “El Ritual,” commissioned by Pro Musica de San Miguel el Grande. Echevarria played the jarana in the encore.”
Arturo Brennan, who gives the final lecture August 4, is the music critic for the Mexico City newspaper La Jornada; a reviewer for Pauta magazine, where he is a member of the editorial board; and a regular contributor to other cultural publications. He also is a composer, with two CDs of his works, a director and cinematographer and the author of How To Approach Music. Brennan’s free lecture starts at 5pm, followed by the 7pm free concert in the Auditorio Miguel Malo, inside the Bellas Artes by Carmen Eloisa Sánchez, piano Gastón Lafourcade, piano and La Catrina String Quartet. The free tickets for the concert can be picked up in the festival office in the Bellas Artes.
For more information on the festival July 31–Aug. 17, consult the website at www.festivalsanmiguel.com.
Bob Kelly was a reporter for his hometown newspaper and the editor of a weekly, both in Parkersburg, WV. His last newspaper job was with the Chicago Sun-Times.
Symphonic rock concert
By Yolanda Lacarieri; translated by Kathleen Bohné
Concert
The Sconek-T Ensemble
Fri, Aug 8, 8:30pm
Hotel Real de Minas bullring
Calles Stirling Dickinson & Ancha de San Antonio
150 pesos
| The Sconek-T Ensemble will offer a symphonic rock benefit concert at Hotel Real de Minas in the ideal venue of a bullring in need of a sonorous corrida. | |
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Symphonic rock appeared during the last century, emerging in the so-called “hippie” era of the sixties with groups who explored new musical paths through a creative combination of elements of classical music with psychedelic and heavy metal. The Beatles made the first effort with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, influencing bands such as Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, or Emerson Lake & Palmer. Ah, I remember with great nostalgia my cassette of Pictures at an Exhibition, a famous suite of 15 Mussorgsky pieces performed by Emerson Lake & Palmer. Then came Deep Purple, Metallica—don’t worry, in this concert, they won’t break violins.
Suddenly, the London Symphony played Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven and Kansas elevated its chords to the conservatory with “Dust in the Wind.”
The symphonic sound recreated string sessions, a note on the violin precipitates one on the cello and a jealous cello incites another violin. Suffice it to say that Vivaldi smothered the violin; with Paganini it overflowed, requiring the bass tones of the equalizing cello, quelling the sublimation or uprising of the violins. Point and counterpoint require a recurring rhythm, a pacifying percussion for the vigor of three classical instruments. The drummer, marking the rhythm, a dirty bass, while the wind instruments play with those of the ground, over the sound of cymbals, not in climax, but in accompaniment. The fleeting fantasy of a musical piece, be it Mexican, ranchera, classical or rock.
The ensemble is a perfect quartet called The Sconek-T, something that sounds disconnected, something that will resound in the concert, strings of the asylum that refer to lullabies or the stridency of a public mad with passion, contagious and disoriented. The Sconek-T in concert is euphoria of the collective soul.
You should close your eyes, take someone’s hand, dance on a seat, raise your arms, chant, confuse yourself singing at the top of your lungs. It’s best to listen to them with an unsuspecting soul, come with your ears open, ready, come simply to breathe, relax in your seat, wait for the night, turning on your cell phone in a violent signal against the darkness.
Tickets are on sale at the Hotel Real de Minas reception desk. Funds collected from ticket sales will be directed toward the restoring our archaeological cultural heritage in San Miguel de Allende, through the Institute of Conservation of Culture (Instituto de Conservación de la Cultura).
Gypsy tradition
By Javier Estrada
Concert
Javier “Gitano” Estrada
Fri, Aug 1, 7pm
Sala Quetzal
Biblioteca Pública
Reloj 50A
100 pesos
The Roma descended from an Indian people and migrated westward throughout the Middle East before 1000 AD, and were probably playing music in Constantinople by 1050. By 1400, they lived in Eastern Europe, Egypt and Greece, and then spread to the rest of Europe.
Roma music is a strong tradition in Eastern Europe and in Spain the flamenco is essentially the music, dance and culture of the Andalusian Roma, though it was only linked with Roma some time after the genre evolved (it originated in Arab Andalusia). Many famous flamenco artists are Spanish Roma (Gitanos).
The gypsy nomads, craftsmen and shepherds who arrived in Spain in the fifteenth century called themselves Ruma-Calk (man from the plains) and spoke Calo (from the Indian dialect Maharata).
Gypsies make their own versions of local music. They have always liked embellishments, improvisation and virtuosity and in Andalusía they found hundreds of years of high culture, a rich ground where Moorish, Jewish, Catholic and local musical influences mixed. The predecessor of the flamenco guitar developed during this time.
Some believe that “flamenco” is a mispronunciation of the Arabic words felag (peasant) and mengu (fugitive). Flamenco was a synonym for “Andalusian gypsy” in the eighteenth century.
Learn while having a great time
By Ann Jaymes
Concert
Folk harp and flamenco guitar
Sergio Basurto
Mon, July 28, 7:30pm
Sala Quetzal
Biblioteca Pública
Reloj 50 A
150 pesos, limited seating
I first met Sergio Basurto three years ago. While sitting in a Jardín café, I looked up to see a man walking by with a folklore harp. Since I too play the harp, I ran after him and excitedly engaged him in conversation. He invited me to one of his concerts and I was hooked.
He has extensive knowledge of Latin American rhythms, from Brazilian bossanova to Argentine milongas and Paraguayan polcas. These he expertly interprets on the harp, with the full range of emotions appropriate to each one. Then he picks up his guitar and plays haunting and passionate flamenco rhythms. His dexterity is amazing and he is virtually self-taught. The harp is difficult enough to play, but flamenco guitar even more so, and for this he has my unending admiration, not to mention envy.
He encourages audience participation such as clapping to the rhythm or an enthusiastic yell at the end of a guitar solo. He also enjoys answering questions about his repertoire, so go to his concerts and learn while having a great time.
I am privileged to call Sergio my friend—he is a humble man despite his musical gifts, full of humor and extremely kind to everyone, in the typical San Miguel way.
The Aztec school of music
Concert
Pre-Hispanic Music
Collar del Viento
Fri, Aug 1, 5pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Pública
Reloj 50A
50 pesos ticket
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Archaeological evidence suggests that the ancient Aztecs maintained a school of music at Tenochtitlan, their capital city. |
No doubt the young musicians in training studied the pre-Hispanic instruments that we find today in the museums of Mexico, instruments like the teponaztli, a drum carved from a large tree trunk, and the quiquiztli, or conch shell trumpet. These instruments and many others will be played at a recital of pre-Hispanic music by a group called Collar del Viento (The Wind’s Necklace).
The ensemble consists of four youngsters ranging in age from 11 to 18 years. Three members of the group have been playing together for over six years. The group is instructed by a professional Mexican musician from Pozos, Gonzalo Gómez.
Collar del Viento will perform in costume and face paint utilizing the traditional ritualistic effects of incense, flowers and candles. After the performance the audience will have the opportunity to ask questions and examine the instruments. The show will benefit the pre-Hispanic music workshop for kids, held in the library every Saturday at noon.
Open your wallets for Science Camp
By Alicia Wilson Rivero
Concert
One-of-a-kind Science Camp Benefit
Wed, July 30, 8pm
Café El Viejo Topo-Teatro
100 pesos
A one-of-a-kind, out-of-the-ordinary benefit concert supports the ongoing programs of Science Camp El Charco and Science Club at La Biblioteca. Several top musicians from our ever-so-diverse community will take the stage to help both programs continue to offer science education free of tuition to San Miguel children.
The headline show features Nate & Max Schwartz, two brothers from the Bay Area who will play Bluegrass classics on the mandolin and banjo. Doug Robinson, musician and Atención columnist, offers songs never before sung or played to his San Miguel audience. Derek Burrows, a musician from the Bahamas by way of Boston, will woo us all with lilting Caribbean songs. Myrna from Holland will have us singing along with French Cabaret songs.
The musicians and Café El Viejo Topo owner Isaac Toporek are generously offering the talent and space to make this benefit concert a reality. Admissions go entirely to the camp/club funds. Proceeds support all that’s involved in putting together a science education program for kids—batteries, globes, microscopes, reference libraries, binoculars, compasses, magnifiers and fish tanks. Proceeds also will go toward ongoing outreach, acquisition of materials and training for the summer program. We hope to make Science Club a viable year-long program at the Biblioteca Pùblica.
Reserve with El Viejo Topo at 154-8701; email sciencecampsma@gmail.com
for all other inquiries.
Alicia Wilson Rivero is co-director of Science Camp and Science Club.