Guitarist Samir Belkacemi: Pure energy in musical abstraction, Jan 12, 2007
By Tim Hazell

Concerts by Samir Belkacemi

Classical guitar, Wednesday, January 17, 8pm

Neo-Sufi fusion, Friday, January 19, 8pm

Teatro Santa Ana, Reloj 50A

150 pesos

Young guitarist Samir Belkacemi is a performer who combines influences from his father’s Algerian folkloric roots and his mother’s exuberant Mexican background. Born in Tasmalt, Algeria, in 1977, the musician immigrated to Mexico at the age of eight. Belkacemi is a longtime resident of Mexico City, claiming both nationalities and cultural affiliations. Infused with references to classical, flamenco and Arab music, his original compositions are characterized by strong tonalities and rhythms that frequently oscillate in rising siroccos of mood. When I interviewed him recently, Belkacemi was preoccupied with an upcoming CD recording and the practicalities of combining authenticity and technique through his chosen vocation as an experimental guitarist. His approach to music integrates tradition with technology, balancing dissonance and consonance, vision and aesthetics. 

The classically trained musician has developed over 20 alternative tunings for his instrument to better articulate his inner life. He displays a natural affinity for music as an abstraction, complete as an entity without references to external reality. Belkacemi’s concept of harmony is corporeal. He perceives his anatomy as an extension of his guitar, its tensions, engineering and acoustics. With that sensibility comes a desire to have his music reach his audience subliminally and to create orchestrations that impact directly on the nervous system. During our discussion we spoke briefly about visceral reverberation in music, analogous to the way proponents of abstract expressionism in visual arts employ charged color, dynamic forces of mass and deliberate distortion to challenge and engage their observers.

Belkacemi’s maternal grandmother was a professional concert pianist, trained under maestro Manuel Ponce. By contrast, his grandfather played the oud, ancestor of the European lute and guitar. This instrument, with its ability to resonate dark and exotic flourishes of rhythm and emotion, is a cornerstone of Middle Eastern music. Its deep and unquiet voice can exult, mutter and weep. As a result, Belkacemi was exposed to the European classical repertoire and microtonal possibilities of ethnic instrumentation at an impressionable age.

When asked about the artists who have had a lasting influence on his career as mentors and sources of inspiration, he cites two grand luminaries—Andrés Segovia and Paco de Lucia—for their innovations, liberty of expressions and grand command of technique. He began studying guitar at age 10 after spending a short time with the piano. The tactile immediacy of vibrating strings was more appealing, and he persevered. At age 13, feeling that a serious approach to learning his craft under the guidance of academia was necessary, Belkacemi enrolled at the Consevatorio Nacional de la Música in Mexico City, spending two years there before entering the Escuela Nacional de la Música de UNAM at the age of 16. 

Belkacemi graduated with a bachelor’s degree in concert performance after nine years of study in 2004. Subsequent to this, he began to perform as a classical guitarist in competitions, notably in Culiacán, Jalapa, Paracho and Taxco, where he won second place. Belkacemi concertized in the Sala Olin Yolitzky, UNAM, Bellas Artes Mexico City and various embassies and Casas de Cultura. In 2002, Belkacemi’s career took an unusual hiatus when he traveled to Spain to attend a degree program specializing in flamenco music. Under the guidance of Los Hermanos Luna and Rubén Diaz, a protégé of renowned master musician Paco de Lucia, the artist broadened his emotive and technical range.

For Belkacemi, composing begins with improvisation. With his current project, the guitarist intends to modify his freer approach on past orchestrations, applying these skills more formally to suit a broader range of instrumentation—saxophone, electric bass and percussion. In restless pursuit of new sounds, Belkacemi makes use of digital processing and incorporates the warp and weft of electronics into his recording venture. Loops, synthesizers and sampled tonalities add seasonings to the arrangements, part of a production slated for 2007 in Guadalajara and Mexico City. When asked about these innovations that promise to meld jazz, classical, flamenco and folkloric genres, the personable musician replied, “Within the realm of ethnic and formal influences, anything is possible.” He is looking forward to a promising career as a concert artist and composer with opportunities to travel, availing himself of encounters with different cultures, musical traditions and innovations.

Belkacemi is new to San Miguel and plans to become a resident, favoring the cultural and creative diversity that permeates the town to the more frenetic and enervating pace of Mexico City. To create contrast and interest, the recital on January 17 features classical repertoire, while on January 19 he premieres his original compositions, a genre he refers to as “Neo-Sufi fusion.” A recital at the Angela Peralta Theater follows on February 22. For more information, contact Georgia Dering at 044-415-103-3364 or georgia@mexicanfolkart.com 

Tickets are available at the Teatro Santa Ana and Galería Izamal, Mesones 80.

New chamber work blends styles, instruments

Chamber Music Concert, A Forest of the Americas Friday–Sunday, January 19–21, 5pm St. Paul’s Church, Cardo 6, 50/150 pesos

Local composers Tim Hazell and Doug Robinson will premiere a unique chamber music work that combines pre-Hispanic and classical instruments and musical styles ranging from Bach to Latin to jazz at three upcoming concerts.

A Forest of the Americas, a 40-minute work, will be presented by San Miguel el Grande Pro Musica, which has sponsored an annual series of chamber music concerts since 2001. The final concert, January 21, will honor the birthday of Ignacio Allende, one of the heroes of the 1810 revolution.

The composers are Tim Hazell, an interdisciplinary artist, who will play ethnic strings, the 12-string guitar, the banjo and additional percussion instruments, and Doug Robinson, a recording artist and record producer from San Diego, who will play the acoustic piano.

Joining the composers will be musicians from Mexico, Cuba and the United States, including award-winning violinist Maureen Conlon Gutierrez; a player of ancient instruments of Mesoamerica, Gonzalo Gómez Martínez; bassist José Luis Chagoyan, better known as “Hopalong”; percussionist Victor Monterrubio; a 16-year-old cellist from Cuba, Rolando Hernandez; and guitarist Ken Basman.

“I'm truly proud of what we’ve done, and I can say with some certainty that it’s a unique piece of work, and I think we're going to get a lot of attention both in Mexico and in the States,” Robinson said. “We plan to record it after the debut.”

The work qualifies as chamber music because it is meant to be performed in an intimate setting, Robinson added. “We switch gears between styles pretty often. I hear bits of Bach combined with Cuban and Flamenco rhythms, a little pop and lots of jazz—including improvised solos by ‘Hopalong’ and myself. We’re bringing in guitarist Ken Basman for the last two movements to up the jazz quotient.”

For both composers, writing Forest required new approaches. “One of the composing techniques we have used to give this project an authentic sense of ethnic soul,” Hazell said, “was to bring the unusual instruments that represent themes for the various movements to rehearsals at the start of the creative process. This has allowed us to annotate the distinctive voice and sound of a banjo, dulcimer, 12-string guitar or sitar before working backward to the final melodic lines we had in mind and the instrumentation of the scores.

“This method captures the real essence of the unusual sounds and scales, rather than trying to achieve the ethnic and Mesoamerican harmonies using more conventional references such as a violin or piano. Their unique voicings remain the basis for our investigative process.”

Robinson said he has “always been drawn to experiments in musical fusion, but I had a hard time wrapping my head around the more atonal and random aspects of pre-Hispanic styles. I’m used to scoring something and having the other players read the paper, so to speak.

Here, we’d be working with at least one player who not only didn’t read conventional music notation, but in fact plays instruments for which notation has never really been developed. When was the last time you heard a concerto for tuned rocks or hollowed-out tortoise shells?”

After starting piano lessons at age nine, Robinson said, he soon began picking up drums, bass and guitars and was playing about 15 instruments when he was in high school. Major influences, he added, include the Beatles, Weather Report, Miles Davis and Debussy. “I have 13 albums out on my own label. I’ve scored an independent feature film, Lost Lake by Adams Films, played jazz festivals around the world, and currently have two bands in San Miguel, Mo’ Ritmo and a piano trio, and write an occasional music review column for the local paper.”

Hazell is an interdisciplinary artist in the areas of painting, music, poetry, theater, education, writing and research with a focus on Latin America and its indigenous roots. He is the former director of art of the Instituto Allende in San Miguel and has acted as a consultant for the faculty of the University of Juarez and 13 primary and secondary schools in Chicago in the area of the implementation of creative arts programs. He is a widely published poet, essayist and recording artist and won awards from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1996 and 1997 and the PROCAN award in 1987 as librettist for best vocal work, contemporary classical. 

Tickets are available at Casa de Papel, Mesones 57; La Conexión, Aldama 3; the Sierra Nevada Hotel, Hospicio 46; and at the St. Paul’s church office, weekdays between 11am and 2pm. Tickets may be reserved by calling 152-0387 during those hours and purchased at the door one hour before concert time. 

For more information, consult the website at www.promusicasma.com 

Rodrigo Garcíarroyo sings in San Miguel
By Carolina Vidal

Tenor Rodrigo Garcíarroyo in concert “El Alma en la Voz” Saturday, January 20, 7pm Teatro Ángela Peralta, Mesones & Hernández Macías 250/170/80 pesos

The following are excerpts from an interview with Mexican tenor Rodrigo Garcíarroyo.

Carolina Vidal: Why did you choose San Miguel to start your 2007 concerts?

Rodrigo Garcíarroyo: Because I have never sung here and have always thought that San Miguel has a very strong cultural spark and an audience that not only appreciates what we do as singers but that enjoys it, too. I am sure I will enjoy it along with them.

CV: Tell us about the concert and what people will experience when they attend.

RG: It’s a very enjoyable concert for all audiences, not only for opera lovers. The first half is a selection of opera arias and duets, and the second half includes romanzas, songs and duets of Zarzuela and Mexican concert music with songs from Agustín Lara, María Grever—music that is in the popular repertoire but that has technical difficulty and musical complexity.

Whoever comes to the concert will find a broad sample of what a trained voice can do, from some big, powerful pieces to some with great subtlety. The works also invoke a variety of emotions, from jealousy and treason to love and tenderness.

I will have the fortune of sharing the stage with an extraordinary pianist, Mario Alberto Hernández, who is also a conductor and a great artist, and he is from Guanajuato. Also joining me is Enivia Mendoza, a fabulous soprano with whom I have worked for some time now. 

CV: What does being a singer mean to you? 

RG: Singing to me is more about putting forth human emotion than about the voice. I have dedicated my life to the technical refinement of my voice and the comprehension and interpretation of the human heart; the work of the dramatic artist, his contribution to society, is to be a mirror of these passions for the public, who look at themselves reflected in the actor. 

CV: I heard that you were an architect. Why did you decide to change your career?

RG: In fact, I believe that I didn’t change my career. From the beginning I have pursued art—I just changed my means of expression. I found in singing a very fine and powerful means to express myself. 

CV: Which have been your most important experiences on stage?

RG: In terms of my career, without a doubt it has been singing on the great stages of Mexico, such as Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts) and the Auditorio Nacional, and internationally in the Opera of Israel. But the most important experience on stage for me is always with the public. I control my voice up to my lips, but what happens between my mouth and the audience—what happens in that space—is a phenomenon of singing that I also watch from the outside. Fortunately, that can happen in the biggest theater or in the most modest hall.

Pecanins to sing at El Viejo Topo theater

Betsy Pecanins, who delighted audiences at the Jazz Festival in November, will be back in San Miguel to perform at the new theater café El Viejo Topo, located in the Plaza Pueblito center at the end of Stirling Dickinson in colonia San Antonio.

Pecanins has earned great popularity internationally for her intriguing fusion of Mexican folk music with blues and jazz, blending the temperaments of pain, humor and sensuality in a broad variety of vocal styles.

Born in Yuma, Arizona, the daughter of an American father and a Spanish mother, Pecanins chose Mexico as her homeland, which inspires her high-quality, innovative contemporary arrangements and compositions that please all audiences and generate new fans everywhere. As a performer, she has a dynamic stage presence to accompany her distinctive, warm voice.

Since 1980, Pecanins’ discography includes 15 albums recorded for multiple international labels. She has performed in Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Havana, Lisbon, Los Angeles and New York as well as with the Mexico City Philharmonic. 

El Viejo Topo (The Old Mole) was founded by Isaac Toporek to give San Miguel a relaxing gathering place for culture and coffee, bought from an indigenous cooperative in Chiapas (fair trade) and roasted by Toporek on-site. Every Wednesday at noon guitarist/singer Federico Azuz performs. Wednesday evenings at 7pm, enjoy a movie not found at Blockbuster.