Imani Winds

Festival de música de camara July 28–August 11 
By Kathleen B. Bohne

Many of us are unfamiliar with the music of wind quintets; it seems the only time we truly hear the voices of these instruments is during brief, if memorable, solo interludes in symphonic works, or in the occasional concerto written for a wind instrument and orchestra. During pre-performance tuning, violins, violas and cellos meld into a pleasant background noise, while the reedy voices of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons sound like clear birdsong above the din of a rushing river. The wind quintet—played with clarinet, flute, bassoon, oboe and French horn—is a chance to experience the sounds of these instruments and how they complement, contrast and play together in a way unlike any other.

The Imani (“faith” in Swahili) Winds quintet from New York (formed in 1997) is made up of established young musicians who are unafraid of experimenting. As explained by bassoonist Monica Ellis, “we are classical musicians, we don’t claim to be jazz musicians or anything other than what we are...” However, these classical musicians have expanded their horizons to include ethnic music from Africa, Asia and Latin America, creating a unique and mesmerizing musical experience. Imani Winds also performs pieces composed by its own musicians; three of these works, two by flautist Valerie Coleman and one by hornist Jeff Scott, are on the group’s program for the Chamber Music Festival here in San Miguel. This enhances the quintet’s dynamic approach to music; it is a rare and intriguing experience to witness a composer perform his or her own works.

Imani Winds’ three upcoming concerts (on August 6, 7 and 9) include a diverse compilation of works and composers, stretching from Uganda to Brazil to the Czech Republic. “One of the things we are trying to do in classical music is show that there’s an innate ethnicity that exists in it,” says Ellis. The classical past is represented by Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin which was written, originally for piano, as a monument to fallen Frenchmen in World War I. This piece shifts from dance-like to poignant in its four movements, which is characteristic of the mercurial composer’s music. Mozart’s Piano Wind Quintet K 452 will also be performed by the group, as will a highly unusual nonet (for nine musicians) by Louis Spohr (1784–1859). Spohr was a well-known German violinist (he invented the instrument’s chinrest in 1820) and composer in his time; he wrote the nonet for flute, oboe, clarinet, French horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello and double bass in 1813, and Imani Winds will perform it with the Cassatt 
String Quartet. Felix Mendelssohn’s Scherzo from A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the last work of a classical composer on this summer’s program, and it will be refreshing to hear the familiar melody from winds instead of the original strings.

There are several living composers on the Imani Winds program: Narong Prangcharoen of Thailand, Karel Husa of the Czech Republic, Justinian Tamusuza of Uganda and Lalo Schifrin of Argentina. The 33 year-old Prangcharoen has been called “a composer with a gift for creating orchestral color” by the L.A. Times and has won numerous awards for his work. Imani Winds has been premiering his quintet Shadow in the 2007 concert tour, and they will also perform it here in San Miguel. Husa was born in the Czech Republic in 1921, fled Europe during World War II and has thus spent most of his life in the United States. He won a Pulitzer Prize for music in 1969. Tamusuza is one of Africa’s pre-eminent contemporary composers and the work Imani Winds will perform, Abaafa Luli (“They who died then”), is based on traditional Ugandan folk music; all five musicians use maracas as well as their wind instruments in the piece. It is a tribute to 22 Christian converts who were martyred in Uganda in the 19th century. Lalo Schifrin is originally from Argentina and is best-known for his many movie scores, including Dirty Harry, Mission: Impossible and Rush Hour 1 and 2. However, his early fame came from working as an arranger and pianist for Dizzy Gillespie in the 1960s. Imani Winds will play his musical tribute to New Orleans, La Nouvelle Orleans, which incorporates jazz themes and quintessential music of the city such as its distinctive funeral dirges.

The quintet will also play a work by iconic Brazilian composer A.C. Jobim (1927 - 1994), one of the creators of Bossa Nova music and of the huge hit “The Girl from Ipanema.” “Libertango” by Astor Piazzola (1921–1992) also comes from South America; Piazzola was a famed and innovative tango composer from Argentina who wove jazz and other modern elements into his music. Imani Winds flautist Valerie Coleman has composed a suite in homage to the remarkable life of singer and entertainer Josephine Baker (1906–1975), who is the theme of the quintet’s latest CD release Josephine Baker: A Life of Le Jazz Hot!, and is on the program for this summer in San Miguel. Baker was born in St. Louis, Missouri into destitution, and began her versatile career as a street performer before entering Vaudeville at age 15. By the 1920s, she was becoming famous for her erotic performances of the “Danse sauvage,” especially in France, in which she appeared in little more than a skirt of fake bananas and a bikini top. She became so enormously popular with the French that she was left untouched by the Nazi occupiers in the 1940s, even managing to participate in the clandestine Resistance movement (which later earned her a Croix de guerre and Legion d’honneur from Charles de Gaulle). Ernest Hemingway once called her “the most sensational woman anyone ever saw” and her French following has never diminished. Baker later participated in the American Civil Rights movement, even speaking in the march on Washington in 1963 alongside Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. She went into a coma shortly following a retrospective performance in Paris in 1975, which was attended by Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco, Sophia Loren, Mick Jagger, Liza Minelli and other celebrities. She died a few days later, at the age of 68. Coleman’s tribute to Baker includes the melody of one of her most famous songs, “J’ai deux amours,” and is described as a “short ballet for wind quintet and percussion.” 

Needless to say, Imani Winds pulls astoundingly diverse musical selections from around the world to perform, which is a joy to any music lover interested in exploring new and unfamiliar paths. As noted in The Washington Post in April 2006, “Imani Winds is a breath of fresh air. The classical music world would do well to take the Imani model to heart.”


The Chamber Music Festival will be selling tickets to concerts on Sunday, July 15 at the Biblioteca Pública during the House and Garden Tour from 10am to 12pm.

Gypsy guitar concert

Concert
Performance by Javivi Hernan
Mon, July 16, 7pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25
Reloj 50A
100 pesos

Flamenco has evolved in southern Spain from many sources: Morocco, Egypt, India, Pakistan, Greece, and other parts of the Near and Far East. How exactly they came together as flamenco is a subject of great debate and a very interesting story.

Gypsies from southern Spain created this music after their arrival in Spain in the 15th century. It is widely accepted that they came from Sind, a northern region of India (now Pakistan). They left in several waves because of invasion and wars with foreign conquerers. The tribes of Sind moved to Egypt until they were thrown out. They then left for Czechoslovakia, but they knew that they were not going to be welcomed anywhere because of their numbers, so they decided to divide themselves in three groups that moved to different parts of Europe. The first document to register the arrival of gypsies to Spain is from 1447.

Those known as gypsies called themselves Ruma-Calk (it means man from the plains or runner from the plains) and spoke Calo (from the Indian dialect Maharata); they used to be nomads, craftsmen and shepherds.

The gypsies have always lived as a nomad culture and take the local music and make their own versions from it. Music is very important in their celebrations and everyday life. All that is needed to start to make music is a voice, and soon hands and feet add the rhythm. Embellishments, improvisation and virtuosity have always been liked and in Andalusia the gypsies found a rich ground for their musicality, fertilized by hundreds of years of high culture, where not only Moorish, but also Jewish, Catholic and local, musical influences mixed.

The Moors occupied Spain, particularly the south, for about 800 years. Science, economy and art flourished in a rich mixture of cultures. The predecessor of the flamenco guitar was introduced and developed during this time. The word flamenco may be a mispronunciation of the Arabic words felag (peasant) and mengu (fugitive). Flamenco began to be used as a synonym for “Andalusian gypsy” in the 18th century.

Concert

“Sherele and Anita Van Ballmoos”
Fri, July 13, 9pm

“Sherele and La Quinta Esencia”
Sat, July 14, 9pm

El Viejo Topo Café Teatro
Stirling Dickinson 28
Plaza Pueblito, Col San Antonio
150 pesos
Reservations: 154-8701

Klezmer music: continually reborn
By Isaac Toporek

Klezmer music is a current in traditional Jewish music that crystallizes diverse musical influences (Russian, Polish, Balkan, Gypsy, Greek and Caucasian), incorporating them into Jewish festivals while at the same time influencing both traditional and contemporary music.

Composers like Glinka, Balakirev, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov and Prokofiev were all impacted by the magic of this musical genre.

The term klezmer is derived from the Hebrew kley (to sing) and zemer (instrument). Both words were combined, thanks to Yiddish, into one which is now used to describe traditional eastern European Jewish music as well as the musicians who perform it. Defined more poetically by the great clarinetist Giora Feidman, “klezmer means that instruments essentially emit the internal voice that sings in every soul. A klezmer doesn’t make music, he speaks, prays and consoles with his instrument.” During World War II, this music was in danger of disappearing; however, the children and grandchildren of countless Jewish immigrants have taken charge of rescuing and reinterpreting it. Thus, the music of a people who have endured centuries of wandering amongst and confronting other cultures, has returned to the roots that have always kept it alive: adherence to tradition, but also the assimilation of new elements. These musicians don’t imitate the few recordings and scores preserved by their ancestors— they utilize their experiences and sense of history to recreate their own klezmer, their own voice. Because of its rhythmic vivacity, melodic force, spontaneity and expressiveness, klezmer reflects the flourishing of a universal spirit, manifested in its rebirth around the globe.

“Sherele” and “La Quinta Esencia” are two groups made up of musicians from diverse geographic and cultural backgrounds that recreate klezmer within the latest current of contemporary music and bring together musical traditions from their countries of origin, such as Argentina, France, Mexico and Switzerland. They season their music with the special spices of each distinct culture. Sherele means “scissors” and the musical origin of the term is associated with the traditional dances of barbers and sastres. This wonderful quartet, based in Guadalajara, recreates themes from the klezmer repertoire and reinterprets them, incorporating elements of jazz, tango and Argentinian and Mexican folklore. “La Quinta Esencia”— a well known ensemble here in San Miguel—has been more inclined to draw from central European folklore, jazz and Spanish music to invigorate their musical interpretations.


Both groups exude enthusiasm and humor and bring to life with this ancestral tradition that lives between nostalgia and joy, between humorous voices and spiritual songs. Because of its acceptance of other musical cultures, klezmer is gaining a following and generating a new youthful audience in countries that are fortunate enough to host groups like Sherele and La Quinta Esencia,

El Viejo Topo Café Teatro presents two different concerts of klezmer music. On July 13, Sherele performs a program that has been arranged with our beloved special guest, accordionist Anita Von Ballmoos.

On July 14, Sherele and La Quinta Esencia play together, showing the different ways to revive tradition and the fraternity at the heart of klezmer music. Each night will have its own flavor so that those who have the opportunity to join us will take home with them an excellent understanding of the meaning of klezmer throughout its long history: a musical meeting of the minds and souls of distinct talents. You are cordially invited to participate in the rebirth of a centuries-old tradition.

Concerts
Performance by Timothy Andres
July 14 & 15, 5pm
St Paul’s Church
Calle Cardo 6
150/ 50 pesos

Pianist Timothy Andres to give two Pro Musica Concerts
By B. K. Lake

The acclaimed young pianist and composer Timothy Andres said he got the idea for one of his pieces, “How Can I Live in Your World of Ideas?” from the caption of a cartoon he drew depicting a young penguin and his parents in a museum, looking at a painting of a naked woman.

Andres, 22, displays his composing and piano skills Saturday and Sunday, July 14–15, at the final concerts of the season in the Pro Musica series. He leads off Saturday’s concert with the cartoon-inspired work, followed by Ludwig von Beethoven’s “Waldstein” Sonata and “Phygian Gates” by the contemporary composer John Adams. The Sunday program includes Robert Schumann’s “Gesänge der Frühe,” György Ligeti’s “Musica Ricercata” and Frederic Rzewski’s “Four North American Ballads”, including the “Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues.”

Andres has won praise as a creator and interpreter of cutting edge music as well as for his mastery of composers of the classical chamber music repertoire. “New music cannot be intimidating when played with this degree of skill and zest,” said Boston Globe critic Richard Dyer after a recent New York recital.

In a New Yorker profile in 2004 when Andres was a freshman at Yale University, Alex Ross said “he is a formidable pianist who has the measure of Charles Ives’s towering ‘Concord Sonata’. He is also a composer, with a piano sonata, a piano concerto, and a symphony to his credit. Most notably, his music is beginning to show an individual voice, which is the hardest thing for a composer to achieve.”

Andres received a bachelor’s degree with honors from Yale this year, where he now is a graduate student, with a long list of compositions and recordings to his credit. He also has played in New York’s Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall and Alice Tully Hall, toured Germany with the Hindemith Ensemble he formed at Yale and in June performed with the group when it accompanied the Martha Graham Dance Company at the New Haven Festival of Arts and Ideas.

Both concerts start at 5pm at St. Paul’s church. Tickets at 150 and 50 pesos are available at La Tienda in the Biblioteca, Insurgentes 25; Casa de Papel, Mesones 57; La Conexión, Aldama 3, and St. Paul’s office weekdays 11 to 2; and at the door one hour before concert time. For details see www.promusica.com. 

Concert
Performance by Rafael de la Rocha

Wed, July 18, 7:30pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Pública
Reloj 50A
100 pesos

De la Rocha sings and strums songs of the heart
By Sue Beere

The nightclub singer and recording artist Rafael de la Rocha, a longtime favorite in Mexico City and San Miguel, presents a program of songs and guitar pieces from Latin American folklore, the Mexican classic repertoire and some of his own compositions.

The program includes pieces by Antonio Carlos Jobim, the Brazilian composer and musician who helped popularize bossa nova; Juan Manuel Serrat, the singer and songwriter from the Catalan region of Spain; and Celso Machado, a Brazilian guitarist.

De la Rocha’s six recordings include La Cancion del Trovador (The Song of the Troubadour), produced here at Sound Track Studio. One of his songs, the prize-winning “San Miguel Allende,” is part of the program. De la Rocha is a stunningly gifted guitarist and vocalist who sings from the heart. “He plays with flash and depth, technique and soul,” said one music critic.

Since first performing publicly at age seven, de la Rocha has played and sung widely throughout Mexico, including a series of TV and nightclub appearances in Mexico City.

A popular entertainer in San Miguel for more than two decades, he has appeared at the Hotel Sierra Nevada and Hotel Posada de la Ermita and for the last four years at the Rancho Hotel El Atascadero.


After receiving a degree in agricultural science, de la Rocha chose to seek a career in music and studied voice at the Universidad Juarez in Durango and guitar harmony at the School of Music in Tijuana.

Tickets at 100 pesos will be available outside the Teatro Santa Ana before the performance, which starts at 7:30pm..