July 06, 2007, Jazz: Portraits of the music, Cabrero in concert, By José Luis Mendoza, Tickling the ivories, Young people – old instruments, Voice and guitar recital ''Two Centuries of the Mexican Song'', Cypress String Quartet, The art of the dance, By Ángela García

This special one-night only show about jazz greats showcases, with live music, personal dialogues and thoughts of some of the legends of jazz.

Alto Sax player Claude Lawrence is the creative force for this show. He covers many musical styles and introduces a few of his own compositions.

Director Elena Shoemaker adapted Claude’s original narrative into the dialogue for “Portraits.” Elena was also the director of the San Miguel Festival Internacional de Jazz for 11 years.

Tickets are on sale at la Biblioteca Pública and at the door.

Cabrero in concert
By José Luis Mendoza

Concert series
With Maestro Antonio Cabrero
Mon, July 9, Aug 13 & Sept 10, 7:30pm
Sala Quetzal
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25
100 pesos

Maestro Antonio Cabrero, conductor of the San Miguel Symphonic Ensemble and founder of the San Luis Potosí Symphony, offers a series of three concerts at the Biblioteca’s Piano Recital Hall (Sala Quetzal) on July 9, August 13 and September 10, all at 7:30pm.

The program is in 3 sections.

A mood-setting first section consists of free-flowing improvisations based on his album The New Age Symphony, for those who love impressionism and new age music, and also the beauty of symphony sounds and the classical tradition.

The second part is basically a tribute to the great masters of American music, such as Gershwin, Porter, Carmichael and Joplin.

“Mexican Romance” is the last part and should attract those who want to know more about the finest Mexican composers such as Agustín Lara, composer of “Granada” and “María Bonita,” and Juventino Rosas, composer of the famous waltz “Over the Waves,” who went from being born in a rural area near San Miguel to world acclaim.

Tickling the ivories

“Lupita,” the Biblioteca’s new Yamaha upright, is 85 percent sold thanks to the wonderful generosity of the Anyél School of Music, Linda McAlister, Dic and Kathy Simandl, Jennifer Wendel and Catherine Humbarger.

Anyél is an organization dedicated to providing free, high-quality, early childhood musical education to the children of San Miguel. They also offer free teacher training workshops and on-going employment opportunities in the field of music. Their goal is to instil in each child the belief that they are musical beings, and that music matters in every life.

Music lovers, community benefactors, anyone and everyone who takes pleasure in the Biblioteca, is welcome to purchase one (or more!) of Lupita’s “keys,” complete with a “Deed of Ownership.” Your support is greatly appreciated.

José Luis Mendoza is in his office Monday through Friday and will be happy to present a deed of ownership to anyone who would like to own a piece of Lupita. A poster of the keyboard with the names of all of her patrons is in the works.

For more information, contact José Luis Mendoza at 152-7305 ext.116.

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 type of wood drum carved from a large tree trunk, and the Quiquiztli (conch shell trumpet). These instruments and many others will be played at a recital of pre-Hispanic music at the Teatro Santa Ana of the Biblioteca Pública.

The performing group is called Collar del Viento (The Wind’s Necklace). The ensemble consists of four youngsters ranging in age from 11 to 18. They play pre-Hispanic music on replica instruments. Three members of the group have been playing together for over six years. The group is instructed by two professional Mexican musicians from Pozos, Néstor Vargas and Gonzalo Gómez.

Collar Del Viento 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.

Voice and guitar recital “Two Centuries of the Mexican Song”

Concert

With Patricia Espinosa and Gerardo Díaz de León

Fri, July 13, 7pm

Teatro Santa Ana

Biblioteca Pública

Reloj 50A

100 pesos

Soprano Patricia Espinosa, born in San Miguel, and guitarist Gerardo Díaz de León from San Luis Potosí, perform July 13in a concert called “Two Centuries of the Mexican Song.”

With the great diversity in genre in Mexican music, the song is one of the most significant expressions in Mexico’s musical production. Songs frequently appear as individual autonomous pieces or as part of operas, zarzuela and oratorio. They are present in different musical halls and theaters, the same as in the church, family reunions or literary or musical gatherings. Songs have had a cultural importance in the political, literary and social groups of each period. The song constitutes a special object of research in Mexico.

Songs in the 19th century had a balanced interaction with the Italian opera, the musical tradition of the Hispanic culture of the 16th century and romantic literature from Spain. These elements formed the Mexican romantic and sentimental song that developed into two different forms: the salon songs and the popular songs that came mostly from Mexico City. Some examples of the salon songs that are included in the program are: “A una golondrina” from Julio Ituarte, “Guarda esa flor” from Melesio Morales, “La pescadorcita” from Cenobio Paniagua or “El deseo” from the singer, pianist and componer Angela Peralta. These beautiful pieces are hardly heard today.

During the 19th Century and since the 1910 Mexican Revolution, professional musicians valued the traditional musical elements, art that was authentically Mexican, which gave birth to the Nationalist period.

From Manuel M. Ponce, who preceded Nationalism, you will listen to “Scherzino Mexicano” and “Estrellita” for solo guitar, “Arrullo” and “Jicarita” from Blas Galindo, “Ihcuac tlaneci” (At Sunrise) from Salvador Moreno and also “Mi Novia” and “Corrido de Domingo Arenas” composed by Candelario Huizar, hardly known and not even edited yet.

Kathleen B. Bohne

Classical chamber music is difficult to surpass in its intimacy, diversity and sheer beauty, as many Sanmiguelenses have experienced during 29 years of the Festival de Musica de Camara. This year’s program includes a wide range of composers and musicians, and introduces the Cypress String Quartet in their first visit to San Miguel. The members of this San Francisco-based quartet (Cecily Ward and Ton Stone, violin; Ethan Filner, viola; Jennifer Kloetzel, cello) have performed across the United States and internationally with passion and virtuosity since 1996. However, these are not solely talented artists; they are innovators and caretakers in the world of chamber music. Eight years ago, the Cypress String Quartet began a program devoted to nurturing the creation of new music: “Call and Response”. The group chooses two classical masterpieces of chamber music to perform, and then commissions a contemporary composer to write a “response” inspired by these works. This year in San Miguel, the Cypress String Quarte
t’s performance schedule includes one of these new additions to chamber music repertoire: Jeffrey Cotton’s String Quartet No. 1, penned in 2003 after Haydn’s Op. 33, No. 5 quartet and Mozart’s K.421. This piece, along with many others commissioned by the group, have received widespread critical acclaim and are credited with helping to kindle interest and appreciation of this form of music for a new generation.

The other dimension of the CSQ’s unique approach is the revival of works by composers who have been forgotten or nearly-lost. Two such works are on their program for San Miguel this summer - Erwin Schulhoff’s Five Pieces for String Quartet and Charles Tomlinson Griffes’s Two Sketches based on Native American Themes. The former was written by a radical Czech Jew (he put the Communist Manifesto to music) a few years before his tragic death in a Nazi concentration camp in 1942. The latter was created by an American composer who passed away at age 35 in 1920, before his reputation as an artist was well-established. Neither acquired much fame or a large following, but they deserve the attention given them by the Cypress String Quartet.

Schulhoff explored new avenues in 20th century music, such as jazz, but often expressed this fresh musical language in familiar forms like the waltz, serenade or tarantella (three of the Five Pieces for String Quartet). Griffes too brought a distinct musical world into the classic string quartet; his Two Sketches based on Native American Themes shape the sounds of strings into a unique voice, poignant and otherworldly. Another 20th century artist included in the Cypress String Quartet’s program is the Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch. Much of his work was inspired by Jewish folklore and liturgy, but he also composed neo-classical music inspired by J.S. Bach, as well as an operatic version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The CSQ will play from his “Landscapes for String Quartet” and “In the Mountains”, both written in 1925 for two violins, viola and cello.

The old masters will not be ignored by the Cypress String Quartet this summer: they are scheduled to perform from two different string quartets by Joseph Haydn, as well as one by Ludwig von Beethoven, a quintet by Franz Schubert (with the addition of cellist Alan Daowz from La Catrina quartet) and also a Dvorak quartet. The two Haydn quartets (the “Emperor” op. 76, no.3 and op. 33, no. 5) embody the essence of chamber music: pleasing harmonies and clean contrasts among the violins, viola and cello. The Beethoven quartet (op. 135) is the last complete work ever written by the German genius and feels like a retrospective piece, reflecting on the classical world he inherited and then transformed forever. Schubert’s quintet (D 956 op. 163 posthumous) was composed only months before the composer’s early death at 31. It is an unusual piece that instead of adhering to the standard addition of one viola to a string quartet, is filled out by a second cello. It has grown tremendously in popularity since its composition and is now considered one of the eminent masterpieces of chamber music; Arthur Rubenstein asked for the second adagio movement to be played at his funeral. The quartet by romantic powerhouse Antonin Dvorak (op.106, no. 13) was composed in 1895, the year he returned to Europe after three years in New York. Although not his most famous (the “American” quartet op. 96, no. 12 likely holds that honor), this quartet includes the composer’s trademark lyricism and dance-like melodies expressed by the violins, anchored by a warm bass in the cello and viola.

The Cypress String Quartet is sure to do justice to these masterworks and bring audiences to their feet with “their precision, their brilliant modulation of dynamics and tempo...and their exceptional communication with one another.” (Dean Bevan, Lawrence Journal-World) Come experience the wonder of exquisite music played by exceptional talent.

Cypress String Quartet Schedule:

Monday July 30, 7:00 pm Teatro Angela Peralta		Haydn String Quartet op. 76, no.3, “Emperor” Schulhoff Five Pieces for String Quartet Beethoven String Quartet op. 135

Tuesday July 31, 7:00 pm Bellas Artes FREE E.		Haydn String Quartet op. 33, no.5 Bloch Landscapes for String Quartet In the Mountains J. Cotton String Quartet No. 1 Schubert Quintet op. 163 (posthumous)

Thursday August 2, 7:00 pmTeatro Angela Peralta C.T.		Haydn String Quartet op. 33, no. 5 Griffes Two Sketches based on Native American Themes Dvorak String Quartet op. 106, no. 13

We are selling individual tickets for all the concerts at the Teatro Angela Peralta. The Chamber Music Festival is also offering a package with a 20% discount to three very special concerts performed at other venues:

Wednesday August 1, 7:00 pm - La Catrina String Quartet at Chorro # 19, Centro

Wednesday August 8, 6:00 pm - Rossetti String Quartet at Santuario Atotonilco

Thursday August 9, 7:00 pm - Imani Winds at Rancho La Loma (Carretera San Miguel a Dolores, kilometer 3.1)

For the free concert given by the Cypress String Quartet at Bellas Artes on July 31, one needs to reserve a ticket at the Chamber Music Festival office (Bellas Artes, Hernandez Macias #75) because space in the Miguel Malo auditorium is limited.

Tel. 154 5141 and 154 8722

www.chambermusicfestival.com

info@festivaldemusicadecamara.com

Flamenco performance

With Junta Flamenca

Fri, July 6, 5pm

Teatro Santa Ana

Biblioteca Pública

Insurgentes 25

200 pesos

Visiting or living in San Miguel de Allende is always an opportunity to immerse oneself in a variety of magnificent social and cultural experiences. One experience in particular captured our hearts and our souls in a fresh and memorable way. Our first exposure to the world of flamenco dance two years ago pulled us into a pulsating, vibrant world of intimate interplay between song, dance, costume and music. Powerful and intricate footwork combined with dramatic and arresting movement created a montage of elegance and passion. Accompanying rhythms of instrument and voice beautifully amplified the delicate power of the dance. The effect was to transport us to a world of exquisite sensual and emotional connection. On that night, we had the privilege of viewing the performance of San Miguel’s own group, Junta Flamenca.

The members of Junta Flamenca include Lorena Vargas, Ángela García, Alfredo Enríquez, Guillermo Blanco and Victor Monterrubio. Their contrasting styles are captivating. Vargas, now living in San Miguel, comes here via New York and Mexico City, where her elegant and fiery solo appearances have enthralled audiences and received high acclaim. García, a native of Mexico City, is a well-established flamenco artist here, as well as in the capital, and is highly recognized for her powerful and expressive style. Enríquez is an outstanding entertainer who thrills audiences with his daring personality and picardía. A multitalented artist and former opera singer, he was conquered by the flamenco mystique and delivers his heart and soul in each appearance.

As if the dance were not enough to completely draw you in, you will tremendously enjoy Junta Flamenca’s musical accompaniment—so essential to the rich experience of flamenco dance. Guitarist Guillermo Blanco’s flamenco rhythms will astound you. He has appeared in venues large and small and has enraptured audiences worldwide with his soulful and stirring style. Percussionist Monterrubio has consistently performed with the best jazz ensembles around San Miguel. Flamenco singer Eduardo Ambríz will draw you in to a deep inner world. He has mesmerized flamenco fans in all of Mexico’s important theaters, from the time he was a small boy.

Tickets are available at the Teatro Santa Ana in the Biblioteca Pública.