Norwegian pianist Age Kristoffersen in San Miguel
By Jesús Ibarra January 4, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Piano Concert Age Kristoffersen Edvard Grieg “Lyric Pieces” Sun, Jan 6, 13, 20 and 27, 2pm Teatro Santa Ana Biblioteca Pública Insurgentes 25 50 pesos, tickets available daily, 11am–7pm

Renowned Norwegian concert pianist Age Kristoffersen will offer concerts on 12 consecutive Sundays from January to March. Kristoffersen, who has had a lifelong affair with the piano, gives more than 100 performances around the world every year. He has received prizes and awards on three continents and met with unanimous praise from critics everywhere. 

Following a concert at Carnegie Hall, The New York Times wrote that he is “an extraordinarily accomplished pianist...no technical problems seem to bother him, phrasing and dynamics are carefully planned, and color is his special territory... a lovely, masterly piano recital.”

Atención reporter Jesús Ibarra talked with Age Kristoffersen about his musical career, his family and the concerts he will give in San Miguel.

Jesús Ibarra: When did you begin your career as a pianist?

Age Kristoffersen: I started very early. I gave my first public concert when I was about 10. I started in Norway, then I studied in Boston. I won an international piano competition, and since then I have been all over the world playing in small places and in big places, such as Carnegie Hall in New York. I began by playing with symphony orchestras, but for 30 years I have performed without an orchestra.

JI: How old were you when you won the international piano competition?

AK: I was about 24; I think it was in 1961. Around the same time I made my international debut at Carnegie Hall.

JI: How did you get interested in music?

AK: I come from a middle-class family. We did not have much money. We didn’t have a piano. I used to turn on the radio to listen to music, and I drew piano keyboards on tables, windowsills and practically every available surface. I went to the piano store to find out how many white keys and how many black there were on a keyboard. My father and my mother did not play the piano, but after they found keyboards painted everywhere they decided they had better buy a piano. I was the only one in my family who undertook a professional musical career.

JI: What can you tell us about your music teachers?

AK: One of my piano teachers was called “A-Minor Johnson,” because he was a kind of international champion at playing the “Piano Concerto in A Minor” by Edvard Grieg, a Norwegian composer. He used to tell me that when I go somewhere to play, I must include local composers in my repertory. 

JI: Are you married? Do have you any children?

AK: I was married to a famous Norwegian ballerina. We met when I gave my first Carnegie Hall concert; she was dancing the ballet Giselle with the New York City Ballet. Within a year we were married. We had two children, a boy and a girl. Now they are grown up. She is in Oslo; my son is in Atlanta, Georgia, and works for CNM News.

JI: Did any of your children take up music?

AK: No. They wanted to do different things since they had grown up around music. My son says he was raised under a piano and his sister on the ballet stage.

JI: Do you play any other musical instrument?

AK: I started playing the trumpet when I was very young, about 10 years old. But the piano is so overwhelming because you have the whole orchestra there—everything is there. One must play the trumpet with other musicians. I played in a group and in a band. 

JI: Who is your favorite composer?

AK: That it is very difficult to answer. Sometimes when I play Debussy I think all his music is very interesting and I discover new things each time I play him. When I play Brahms I feel the same thing. It is so wonderful and so interesting. Brahms and Debussy would be among my favorites. Beethoven too, of course.

JI: What is your favorite kind of music?

AK: Well, I have a problem with baroque music. To me, it very mathematical. It is interesting for the brain, but it doesn’t have the soul that I need. I am a romantic; I need the melody and the soul.


JI: What would you say has been your most important concert?

AK: All of them. Every single concert holds the same excitement for me. I give between 80 and 100 concerts a year, and every one is something exciting and different for me.

JI: Have you played in many parts of the world?

AK: Yes, almost the whole world. However, I don’t travel so much any more. Five years ago I used to travel around the world all year, then I got my own concert hall in Norway, in one of the most famous tourist hotels, Kvikne’s Hotel in Balestrand. I play there from May to September. In September I travel for a couple of months and then I come to San Miguel, where I have a house. 

JI: How long have you been coming to San Miguel?

AK: I came for the first time about a year ago. I just love the town.

JI: Is this the first time you have given a concert in Mexico?

AK: Yes, it is.

JI: Do you plan to play in other cities in Mexico, such as Mexico City?

AK: Well, it is not in my plans yet. Right now I have many things lined up. 

JI: What can you tell us about the concerts in San Miguel?

AK: On January 6, I will begin a series of 12 concerts in Teatro Santa Ana; they will take place each Sunday in January, February and March at 2pm. The January concerts include lyric pieces, a kind of musical poems program by Edvard Grieg, the most famous Norwegian composer. It is a kind of commemoration of the 100th anniversary of his death. This is sort of “easy listening” romantic piano music. I will also tell stories and anecdotes about the composer and about the different pieces. The February program is called “An Hour of Romantic Classics.” It includes somewhat longer pieces, but not too difficult for people: Chopin, Franz Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Sibelius. The March program is called “Personal Favorites” and includes pieces by Brahms, Debussy, Liszt and Chopin.

A true lover of the guitar

Concert Arturo Velarde Thurs, Jan 10, 6pm Teatro Santa Ana Biblioteca Pública Insurgentes 25 100 pesos

Classical guitar player Arturo Velarde made his debut in 1984 at Teatro Juárez in Guanajuato. As a result of this presentation, the University of Guanajuato gave him a scholarship that enriched his career. Velarde has being playing guitar in different venues all over Mexico and at private concerts for the Rockefeller family in New York, the Brooks family in Canada and Liona Boyd, “the guitar lady of the world.”

Two of his more important works for guitar are “Melancholic Prelude for Liona Boyd” and “Funeral Prelude” (recorded for National Geographic). One of his more important teachers is Pavel Steidl from Czechoslovakia. After Velarde played for him, Pavel stood up and gave him a big hug, telling him, “Arturo, you really love the guitar.”

Tickets are available at the theater box office.

Internationally renowned classical guitar at Teatro Santa Ana

Concert
Ramiro Martinez.
Tues, Jan 8, 8pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Pública
Reloj 50A
100 pesos

Ramiro Martinez is a Mexican guitarist with a long history in classical music; his style is clean and precise. He has played all over Mexico and abroad, and was one of the highlights at the International Guitar Festival in San Miguel de Allende, The International Guitar Festival in Morelia, The Ressegna Internazionale di Giovanni Musicisti, in Náples, Italy and the Heart of Chicago Festival in St. Paul. Since 1992 he has been the master guitar teacher in the Facultad de Bellas Artes of the Autonomous University in the City of Querétaro. After this concert, he will be touring in Venezuela, Switzerland, Hungary, Spain, Italy, France and Perú. During this guitar week at the Biblioteca, he will perform a classical guitar concert on Tuesday, January 8 at 8 pm at the Teatro Santa Ana, tickets 100 pesos on sale at the Theatre Box Office.

The return of rock and blues
By Nils MacQuarrie

Concert Seth Sharp & Company Fri–Sat, Jan 4–5, 8pm Teatro Santa Ana Biblioteca Pública Reloj 50A Tickets 100 pesos, at the door

If you missed Seth and Starlit’s Rock and Roll show at the Santa Ana in August, then you missed an amazing show. Ask anyone who attended for an honest opinion—it will be the only sales pitch you need to convince you not to miss the next one.

Seth Sharp and Company will take the stage again at the Teatro with a new line-up of both electric and acoustic songs. “What we enjoy about playing at the Santa Ana are the different levels we can reach,” says Seth. “Our show can come out of the gates like a freight train and then just as quickly we bring it down to a whisper. We’re excited about doing both blues and rock. Besides being a huge fan of blues, the fact that the blues gave birth to rock and roll makes it a fun aural journey to take as you hear how one genre turned into another.”

Seth mimics Mick Jagger as he struts across the stage, guitar in hand. “Even sitting in a cafe eating a taco people tell me I look like Mick,” says Seth. But it’s 10 times better with bass and drums pounding out the rhythm behind him. The set will be slightly different each night. It’s a chance for anyone who appreciates rock and roll or blues to get their socks blown off by a veteran of several tours and hundreds of shows.

The genesis of the Mexican song
By José Luís Mendoza

Concert The Mexican Song in the Nineteenth Century Mon, Jan 7, 7pm Teatro Santa Ana Biblioteca Pública Reloj 50A 100 pesos

San Miguel’s soprano Patricia Espinosa, guitarist Gerardo Díaz de León and Ricardo Flores at the Salterio (The Psaltery), will be playing great Mexican songs from the nineteenth century. This exquisite recital is the third for these master conservatory musicians.

The psaltery (Psalterion, Saltere, Sauterie, Psalterium, Psalter, Salterio) is an ancient instrument seen in many forms. Developed in the Middle East, the psaltery is in the chordophone family. Vibrating the strings by running a bow across them makes the sound.

The psaltery’s strings run the entire length of the instrument which puts it in the same classification as the zither. Early versions resembled a wooden board with gut strings stretched between pegs; later instruments included the hollow box or soundboard with soundholes and metal strings. The player performed with the instrument on the lap, on a table, or in front of the chest held with a strap around his neck if movement was needed.

The psaltery was a very important instrument during the medieval period. The name “psaltery” entered Christian literature in the third century BC translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint where, in the Psalms, “nebel” was translated “psalterion.” The book of Psalms has also become known as the Psalter (or psalterium), from the hymns sung with this harp.

Mexico has a musical history that is full of cultural contrasts, with many different musical styles and influences. Dating back more than a thousand years before any contact was made with Europeans in the sixteenth century, the area was dominated by the Aztec culture, a culture that maintained an important and complex musical tradition. After Cortes’ invasion and conquest, Mexico became a Spanish colony and remained under Spanish rule for the next three hundred years, incorporating their pre-Columbian roots together with the lasting influence that came with the Spanish. Both folk and classical music have drawn from these and various regional styles reflect these traditions. The Spanish regime also imported African slaves, adding a third dimension to the area’s music.

This concert is a treat not often available to the San Miguel audience. They will be playing songs by Luis Barragán, Melesio Morales, Julio Ituarte and Ángela Peralta among others and pieces such as “Danza Habanera,” “La Pescadorcita,” “Adios Mamá Carlota,” “La Sandunga” and “Dios Nunca Muere” by Macedonio Alcala. Tickets are 100 pesos at the theater box office.

Jesus Echevarria world premiere
By Bob Kelly

Pro Musica Concert Stephen Kurtz Sat–Sun, Jan 12–13, 5pm St. Paul’s Church Cardo 6 200, 150 and 50 pesos

When Stephen Kurtz, a founder of Pro Musica, takes his seat at the January concert, he will be sharing with the audience the world premiere of a work by the contemporary Mexican composer Jesus Echevarria.

“I don’t know what to expect,” Kurtz said. “I met with the composer in Mexico City a year ago and gave him the commission. He said he wanted to branch out into something he’s not known for, and I haven’t heard anything since.”

Echevarria is known for his Suite Huasteca and Suite Tarasca, which are homages to the baroque music of New Spain, and Cantes Huastecos and Canasta de Frutas Mexicanas, both song cycles in the Huastecan style for soprano, string guitar and jarana, an eight-stringed relative of the guitar made in Veracruz.

The concerts will be performed by one of Latin America’s most-acclaimed groups, the Cesar Chavez String Quartet of Mexico City. The quartet’s long collaboration with Echevarria includes a Kennedy Center appearance in Washington and several recordings.

Members of the Carlos Chavez quartet include Beata Kukawska, violinist; Bogdan Budziszewski, violinist; Mikhail Gourfinkel, violist; and Alain Durbecq, violoncellist.

Echevarria and his wife will attend the Saturday concert and the reception afterwards to which all members of the audience are invited. The premiere piece will be repeated at the Sunday concert but the rest of the program will be different.

“I wanted to move Pro Musica from an organization that exists to give pleasure to the community, which is largely a foreign audience, to one that supports new music in Mexico,” Kurtz said. On the suggestion of George Bell, the talent scout for Pro Musica and the summer chamber music festival, Kurtz got in touch with Alain Durbecq, violoncellist of the Chavez quartet, for recommendations. Kurtz said he listened to music by the two composers Durbecq chose, picked Echevarria and now awaits the result.

Kurtz and Russ Archibald co-founded San Miguel el Grande Pro Musica in 2001 to provide chamber and classical music year-round to an audience that has grown with the Festival de Camara, which has offered an annual two-week summer festival since 1978. Pro Musica now presents about 20 concerts a year and will stage its second week-long Baroque and Beyond Festival February 15–23, with nine concerts and other events.

Tickets at are available at La Tienda in the Biblioteca, Insurgentes 25; Casa de Papel, Mesones 57; La Conexión, Aldama 3; St. Paul’s office weekdays 11–2; and at the door one hour before concert time. For details visit www.promusicasma.com. 

Bob Kelly was a reporter on his hometown newspaper and the editor of a weekly, both in Parkersburg, W. Va. His last newspaper job was with the Chicago Sun-Times.

The intersection of antique & modern:
Macari-Sotelo Chordophones Lab
By Isaac Toporek

Concert Eblén Macari & Mauricio Sotelo Fri–Sat, Jan 11–12, 8pm El Viejo Topo Café-Teatro Stirling Dickinson 28 150 pesos

When I started listening to the samples of music that Eblén Macari and Mauricio Sotelo create together, I immediately got the impression that I was entering an unlimited space, a vast, unexplored ocean where many new worlds wait to be discovered. 

In these worlds, new harmonies, different ambiances, and qualities of sound combine with mastery and an elegant sensibility. Antique and modern string instruments created an outstanding musical odyssey.

Lately, it would seem that, because of the great intercultural exchange promoted in the media, we might think that there is nothing new to discover. In music, as in all art, musicians have incorporated international influences into their creative process so that we assume that we have heard it all and nothing surprises us anymore; however, what surprised me the most from this sui generis guitar duet was the perfect match of their musical differences.

Eblén Macari, an experienced and renowned Mexican-Lebanese composer and musician, has explored a wide array of sounds, combining the eight-string classical guitar with state of the art technology, developing a unique style. He folds contemporary Latin American guitar riffs into ethnic rhythms from various parts of the world. Departing from these musical influences, he explores the creative freedom of avant-garde jazz, mixing sounds from traditions which culminate in a style that holds true to his Mexican and Middle Eastern roots. 

On the other hand, fellow musician Mauricio Sotelo is a self-taught guitarist and the founder in 1995 of Cabezas de Cera, a progressive rock band that experiments with a number of musical styles from classical to experimental, finding in rock the freedom to blend these styles. For more about Cabezas de Cera, check www.cabezasdecera.com.

Both musicians converge in the mastery and command of their specialty: the chordophones, or string instruments. Together the duet explores new compositions and ensemble arrangements. While Eblén composes with six- and eight-stringed guitars, Mauricio takes command of the Chapman Stick, the 12-stringed electroacoustic guitar, the charrófono and the jaranita prisma (these last two metal instruments were invented by his brother Francisco, who also is part of Cabezas de Cera).

Macari-Sotelo make a peculiar string ensemble, creating a delightful soundscape full of texture and subtleties that express different world musical languages and the sounds of nature.