Sparks will fly at Burnin’ for Learnin’
By Glenda Robinson March 21, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Concert
Burnin’ for Learnin’
Jóvenes Adelante benefit
Doug Robinson, Ken Bichel, Billy White & Etérea
Wed, Mar 26, 7pm
Teatro Ángela Peralta
Mesones 82
150/100/50 pesos

Music lovers, put down your iPods and mark your calendars! On March 26, keyboardists Doug Robinson and Ken Bichel will turn up the heat in their concert Burnin’ for Learnin.’ Proceeds go to Jóvenes Adelante, a San Miguel nonprofit that helps disadvantaged local students get a university education.

I recently had a chance to speak with Doug Robinson. It wasn’t too hard, really... I left my desk and padded upstairs to his home studio, where I found him resplendent in his blue plaid seersucker bathrobe, writing out a bass part.

“One of the things I love about San Miguel is that just by putting on a concert, you can make a huge difference,” he told me. “Last year some of us were able to do this for Casita Linda and it was very gratifying to raise enough money to build over 20 houses for families with no decent place to live—all because we can play music. Now with Jóvenes Adelante we have the chance to send some bright, deserving kids to college and change their lives and the lives of their families and communities.

“When George Bell approached me about putting on this performance, I wouldn’t say yes until I was sure I could do something I’ve never done before and that San Miguel audiences have never heard before. With each of the big concerts I did last year—A Forest of Americas, Plays Well with Others and A Jazz Tribute to Ray Charles—I tried to break new ground creatively and really had the wind in my face.

“Conan O’Brien once observed that the single thing you can’t fake on stage is spontaneity. Somehow, audiences always know when you are taking a flying leap into the unknown and it excites them. So I think people will really get a kick out of the musical high-wire act that Ken and I have planned for this Burnin’ for Learnin’.”

That would be San Miguel resident Ken Bichel, the Juilliard-trained, Emmy-winning composer with two gold records to his credit and a respected career as a TV music producer and first-call studio keyboardist. If you happened to catch his recent sold-out solo concert at Bellas Artes, you know that he’s also a very witty entertainer.

“This concert will provide a setting in which Ken and I can have an improvised musical dialog. We experimented with this a bit last year and had a blast. Now we’re expanding this ‘dueling pianos’ routine into a full set.” said Robinson.

“As piano players, Ken and I are radically different. He is classically trained and able to unleash a waterfall of perfectly articulated notes. I’m a jazz player and I’m more likely to step into silence, while I wait (and pray) for an idea to come to me. Together we meet in the middle and something new happens which surprises both of us. Each of us also will do solo numbers. I’m going to debut my newest composition, ‘On Clancy Street,’ which is dedicated to a dear friend who is currently having health challenges.”

The talented flamenco guitarist Billy White (aka “Guillermo Blanco”) will open the concert, accompanied by percussionist Victor Monterrubio on dumbek. After a few numbers, he’s going to put down his guitar, pick up his oud and bring out Etérea, a team of Middle Eastern dancers led by his stunning wife Carmen. I caught their act at the recent Festival Sabor San Miguel and watched as their pulsating rhythms and Carmen’s sensuous moves compelled everyone within earshot to put down their wine glasses, stop talking and fix their eyes on the stage.

So come enjoy an evening of hot music and dancing, and help change the lives of some talented local students. Tickets are now on sale now at the Peralta box office, La Conexión on Aldama and with a JA volunteer in the Jardín.

Glenda Robinson lives in San Miguel with her composer/producer/musician husband Doug and their three hounds.


More about Jóvenes Adelante 

Jóvenes Adelante (Young People Go Forward) was founded in 2001 to provide university scholarships to academically talented yet economically disadvantaged San Miguel area students. 

For an astoundingly low US$5,000, JA can insure that a bright, deserving young person graduates from a Mexican university with a full degree in a field like engineering, law, accounting, tourism, nutrition, or computer science.

In addition to a monthly stipend, JA provides a mentor who meets once or twice a month with the student. JA matches the mentor’s professional experience with the student’s area of study. Spanish is helpful but not required, as students typically speak some English. 

JA has 10 graduates and currently is funding 42 students. The 2008 goal is to bring on 25 more in September of this year. 

If you would like to donate to this worthy cause, make out a check to Jóvenes Adelante and send it to Box 49A, La Conexión, Aldama 3 in San Miguel. JA accepts contributions in both dollars and pesos via check, cash, or wire transfer. Your contributions are US tax-deductible. For more information about making a donation or volunteering as a mentor, call or write treasurer Sue Beere in San Miguel at 152-1846 or suebeere@cybermatsa.com.mx. 

Latin Soul and Love Songs
By Carly Cross

Sunday Matinee Concerts
Latin Soul
Xavier Hernández & Liliana Gutiérrez
Sun, Mar 23, 2:30pm 
Love Songs
Xavier Hernández & Enrique Prado
Sun, Mar 30, 2:30pm
Teatro Santa Ana
50 pesos

Tenor Xavier Hernández and pianists Liliana Gutiérrez and Enrique Prado perform four Sunday Matinee Concerts of “Latin Soul” and “Love Songs” celebrating world music of various styles and origins.

Hernández and his wife, pianist Liliana Gutiérrez, are a remarkable pair of musicians who direct the Children Choir of San Miguel, the St. Paul’s Church Choir and the Voces Unidas choir. These groups present several concerts throughout the year, and their Christmas concert is now a holiday tradition in San Miguel.


Their Latin Soul program March 23 and April 6 features Hernández playing flute and guitar on pieces by Astor Piazolla, Manuel M. Ponce, Maria Grever and Agustín Lara.

Prado trained on the piano in Texas and Cuba. He and Hernández will perform a program of love songs on March 30 which will take you on a journey across cultures and through time with pieces by Schubert, Fauré, Weber and others.

“The Other Gershwin” raises 38,600 pesos
By Beverly Russell

“The Other Gershwin” concert with the scintillating Marianne Koerner at the piano and her adroit husband Richard Koerner acting as narrator was a sell-out at Bellas Artes, raising 38,600 pesos for Hospice San Miguel.

Fans of Ira Gershwin’s poetic lyrics and the Koerners’ super double act were enthralled by the hour-long performance, which began with “My Ship,” an enchanting song made famous decades ago by Julie Andrews and sung more recently by Tony Bennett.

The evening provided a nostalgic backward glance at stage and movie stars of the Gershwin brothers’ era that began in the twenties. George Gershwin’s tragic death from a brain tumor in 1937 at age 39 did not prevent his brother Ira from continuing to write songs with other composers such as Jerome Kern, Kurt Weill and Harold Arlen. But some of his catchiest lyrics accompanied music by George and were big hits for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. These included “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” (which Koerner joined his wife in singing with a little soft-shoe shuffle, though not on roller skates as in the original movie) and the cleverly composed “They All Laughed.”

Koerner told the audience that his wife never liked him to accompany her on the piano, but he gallantly took over the keys when she sang the amusing “Blah, Blah, Blah” from the 1931 musical Delicious. Finally as an encore, she wound up with a Fred Astaire syncopated tap-dance number written by the Gershwin brothers in 1924, “Fascinating Rhythm.” Like “Strike up the Band,” this song put the Gershwins in the pantheon of popular musicians whose legends live on. Fortunately, San Miguel has its own talented duo making music and great entertainment today.

Venezuelan joropo, “La Paloma” and sones jarochos
By Gabriela Servin

Concert
Folklore harp & flamenco guitar
Sergio Basurto
Mon, Mar 24, 7:30pm
Sala Quetzal
Biblioteca Pública
Reloj 50A
150 pesos, limited seating

Sergio Basurto’s great sensitivity in the interpretation of folklore rhythms will transport us on a magical tour around several Latin American countries. For example, “Cascada” (waterfall) is a Paraguayan polka inspired by the sound of water falling from the multiple cascades in that region.

The Venezuelan joropo, “Concierto de la Llanura,” is a spectacular piece of difficult interpretation. This piece has been so representative of that country that it is considered by many as the informal national anthem of Venezuela. It was derived from the Spanish fandango brought to America during the colonial era; it has a joyous, rhythmic fiesta style.

We leave the enormous llanuras (plains) of central Venezuela and return to urban Havana, where “La Paloma” y “La Comparsa” remind us that Havana is a port and its songs are those of sailors and fishermen. Their particular culture of nostalgia for distant loved ones, as well as the fascination with the sea, extends all around the coast of the biggest island in the Caribbean. During the nineteenth century, the voices of the humble merchant marine workers, sailing their fragile boats on the perilous sea, spread these songs of sad poetry all over Latin America and Spain.

In contrast with this sadness and nostalgia are the explosive rhythms of sones jarochos from the Mexican state of Veracruz, which accompany the zapateado, a Mexican flamenco.

All these rhythms interpreted on the folklore harp accompanied by the guitar celebrate the original rhythms of Spanish flamenco from which they derive.