Suzuki concert features Casa Hogar Kids
By Libby Clemens April 25, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Suzuki Concert
Fri, Apr 25, 6pm
Bellas Artes
Hernández Macías 75
Free 

“Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent,” said Victor Hugo. That sentiment will be echoed aloud in songs performed by San Miguel children playing violins and cellos at the spring Suzuki concert.

“The 40 kids, who include 30 abandoned children from our local group homes, have been learning through the Suzuki method for as long as four years how to play their instruments in individual and group sessions,” said Suzuki teacher Libby Clemens. “They have a lot of beauty to share with the audience.”

The Suzuki method, sometimes called Talent Education, is based on the principles of immersion, encouragement, small steps and an unforced timetable for learning material based on each person’s developmental readiness. The purpose is to train children to become fine musicians and persons, and also to be able to transfer learned skills to many other fields in school and in life. Research has demonstrated that children who study music achieve higher academic results in other subjects. 

Sinichi Suzuki said in his book Nurtured by Love: A New Approach to Education, “It is through music that I found my work and purpose in life. Once [music] to me was something far off, unfathomable and unattainable. But I discovered it was a very tangible thing. It was right inside my ordinary daily self.

“Talent Education differs…. Its aim is to take…children and mold them into superior human beings. Character first, ability second.” This method creates an environment in the class and at home that makes learning enjoyable for the child. Many Suzuki graduates have become professional players.

The children’s lessons have been underwritten in great part by a grant from the Rotary Club of Chagrin Falls, Ohio. That grant will be exhausted by the fall and other funds are being sought to allow the children to continue their lessons. 

“We know the kids love music because they came from the Mexican culture that promotes it,” said Gordon Logan, president of the Midday Rotary Club. “We also know that music lessons help children with their math studies, so we’ve been very pleased to be able to support this program.”

Libby Clemens, an accomplished string performer, had a school in New York City for 30 years. For more information, email lclem437@aol.com  or call 154-8168.

Jazz is the destiny where everything is about to happen

Concert
Iriada Noriega w/ Nicolás Santella, Israel Cupich & Herman Hecht
Thu & Fri, Apr 24 & 25, 9pm
El Viejo Topo Café-Teatro
Stirling Dickinson 28, Plaza Pueblito
Reserve: 154-8701, 200 pesos cover

Iraida has known, since she was a baby that music is a language that connects people from the deepest part of the soul, regardless of geography, race, age or way of thinking. Her father, the pianist and singer Fredy Noriega, lulled her to sleep with songs of Bill Evans. And she herself vibrates in the jazz, which she considers more than a musical genre, an attitude of life; its creative spaces are permanently renewed and impel the artist to invent it every day. It’s like fate, where anything is about to happen.

Noriega will visit San Miguel April 24th25th, and will give two recitals, for which she has prepared a selection of pieces with intimate and delicate hues. Along with some of her songs, Iraida will include compositions by Fito Paez, Elton John, Luis Alberto Spinetta, Mecano and Kansas bands, all of them arranged based on jazz style. Nicolás Santella (piano), Israel Cupich (bass) and Herman Hecht (drums), form the trio that will play with her and will build the sound bridge that will connect jazz with rock and pop.

Quotes in the press:

ExperiencLA: “Her voice has been called nothing short of “incandescent” and an exciting glimpse into the future of Mexican jazz.”

San Luis Obispo News: “Jazz vocalist Iraida Noriega is widely considered the leading proponent of American-style jazz in Mexico, a country that’s adopted American ideas into its own traditional music. Noriega, on the other hand, sounds decidedly American in her vocalization and arrangement aside from singing in Spanish of course!”

The boy who “couldn’t afford a harp” is all grown up
By Dick Avery

Concert
Folklore harp, flamenco guitar
Sergio Basurto
Mon, Apr 28, 7:30pm
Sala Quetzal
Biblioteca Pública
Reloj 50A
150 pesos, limited seating

Equally at home on the guitar and the Irish harp (smaller than the large harp played in symphony orchestras), San Miguel-based Sergio Basurto comes from a musical family in Mexico City.

 All family members sing or play a variety of musical instruments and his great-grandfather was an orchestra conductor.

As a child, he fell in love with Paraguayan harp and Quena flute (traditional Incan flute) music. He began with the flute (“because it was easier to carry around and I couldn’t afford a harp”). Many of his friends were playing Latin American folk music in school and invited him to join them. “I never went to classes; I just went to play [music] with them.”

On Monday, Basurto will play both folklore harp and flamenco guitar to interpret folklore rhythms on a virtual musical tour of Latin America.

Sergio says the thrill of playing never wanes. It’s the same emotional sensation every time he picks up his instrument, no matter what type or style of music he is playing. “It’s like when you’re in love. No matter what feelings I have at the moment—sadness, happiness, anger—they all go away when I start to play. It’s just the music, only the music.” He feels transported during and by the music.

When the audience is responding, he feeds on their emotions, and he “goes into another place.”

He is an enviable man: appreciative of his music, the opportunity to share his music with people and the joy it brings, surrounded by loved ones and happy in his life. We should all be as fortunate.

Dick Avery is the head sipper of the Vino Club SMA and a music writer for Atención.

Your last chance
Compiled by Atención staff

The Festival de México en el Centro Histórico concludes this weekend with a handful of concerts and presentations. For the complete list, visit // www.festival.org.mx  . 

Radical Mestizo: Alcohol with Goran Bregovic and The Wedding and Funeral Band

Famous for his work in Emir Kusturica’s movies, he will bring to México the program Tales and Songs for Weddings and Funerals, a selection of his music that blends the millenary rhythms of the Balkanic Gipsy culture with current forms of music. He will perform on April 18 and 19, at 8:30pm at the Teatro de la Ciudad and during the Festival’s closing concert on April 27, at 6pm, on the main square La Plaza de la Constitución. During the concert, he will appear with a typical Oaxacan band in a concert coproduced by the Festival de México en el Centro Histórico and the group Banda Instrumenta Oaxaca, a part of the Instrumenta Tradición program.

Flamenco legend to perform

Omega Enrique Morente, a flamenco music icon, will perform, for the first time in Mexico, within the framework of the Festival, on Saturday, April 26 at 8:30pm, in the Teatro de la Ciudad. Morente is renowned as a pioneer who initiated a dialogue between traditional flamenco and the musical interests of our times.

Unforgettable jazz features to be included

Jazz could not be absent from the musical selection of this year’s Festival de México en el Centro Histórico. Renowned performers from the local and international scene present the jazz series Jazz en el Zinco.

The program concludes with Ben Monder, guitarist and participant in the New York music scene for the last 20 years, playing with his group. Influenced by musicians such as Paul Motian and Maria Schneider, Monder brings his own technique to his unique sound.