Chamber Orchestra of Celaya Concert
By Flavio Sarabia September 19, 2008 San Miguel de Allende
Concert
Chamber Orchestra of Celaya
Thu, Sep 25, 7pm
Sala Quetzal, Biblioteca Pública
50 pesos
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The Chamber Orchestra of Celaya is a not-for-profit organization that was born in 2005 when a group of musicians and good friends decided to create an independent and professional chamber ensemble to offer a new, creative musical option to the city. The group’s repertoire focuses on baroque and classical chamber music, sacred music and Mexican music.
The Chamber Orchestra of Celaya has a double string quartet (four violins, two violas and two cellos); flute and oboe generally add particular elegance, and the piano sometimes solos or gives harmonic support to the whole group. Very important also is the use of the voices, which adds depth to the repertoire.
This concert will feature a variety of Mexican and Latin American music in a two-part program: the first half includes three traditional folk songs (Joropo, Sol y luna, La bruja y La llorona) followed by three more small pieces from Oaxaca in their original Zapoteca and Nahuatl languages. All are arranged for traditional folk group (guitars, cuatro, vihuela and percussion) mixed with classical instruments (piano, solo cello and strings).
The second part of the program focuses on Mexican concert songs by a variety of composers (Maria Grever and Miguel Bernal Jimenez, among others) performed by our singers accompanied by the orchestra and piano.
My first two months in Manhattan
By Turkkan Osman
[Editor’s note: Turkkan Osman started playing the violin with the San Miguel Suzuki Program when he was 9 years old and later participated twice in the Student Program of the summer Festival de Música de Cámara de San Miguel de Allende. This year, with the aid of scholarship grants from two San Miguel foundations and donations from a number of local residents, Turkkan went to New York City June 23 and plans to be there until December 15 studying privately with two violin teachers from the Manhattan School of Music. He hopes to gain admittance to that school and earn his bachelor of music degree and perhaps his master’s degree in music.]
| It’s been two months here in the Big Apple, although I’ve never heard anyone here call it that. I wish I had a big, adventurous Indiana Jones story to tell, one exciting thing followed by an even more exciting event, but actually my life has been more on the Seven Years in Tibet side. I am learning who I am, and the way I see people has changed somewhat. My perspective on the violin and my own potential is also evolving. | |
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Adapting to my new lifestyle
I think the most difficult thing so far has been how and what to learn from my loneliness. It can give you great wisdom, but if one gets carried away by it it’s like being in quicksand: first you have one foot in, then the other, and then you realize half your body is trapped in it and you can’t get out. This has made me realize why people are so afraid of being alone; it’s not the fact of being unaccompanied but instead realizing what one’s life is and sometimes when we become aware of this we don’t like what we see. Then, the thing is to find out how to fill that emptiness.
Even though the summer was very humid, I didn’t have trouble getting used to it, but there were a couple of days in which I felt like choking in all this humidity. Fortunately, the summer is coming to an end and little by little the cold winds will start to invade us, and then we’ll be wishing for the humidity and the sun to come back.
Transforming this mind, heart and instrument
Two months of taking lessons every week with Maestro Jonathan Strasser has been an important step in my development as a violinist, musician and human being. For the past 30 years Maestro Strasser has been the director and conductor of the New York City InterSchool Orchestras/ISO. He played himself in the movie Fame and also taught violin at the Manhattan School of Music (MSM). I studied with Maestro Strasser because Patinka (Pattie) Kopec, the MSM teacher who assists Pinchas Zukerman, was teaching at several festivals away from New York during the summer. A few days ago she returned, and I had my first lesson with her last February. That was very exciting and went very well.
Since day one, I had to make several changes to my technique; the first thing Maestro Strasser mentioned was my bow grip, precisely, my right thumb. All the fingers play an important role in the process of tone production, but in my opinion it’s the thumb that makes the other fingers work properly. Every time I picked up the bow I had to be conscious about how to use my thumb and get used to the different feelings of my hand position on the bow stick. With a couple of weeks playing only open strings and scales I managed to absorb it; now it feels awkward when I try to remember my old bow grip.
Then came the left hand: every time I placed my fingers on the fingerboard I had to think of keeping them closer together, like a cat ready to attack.
For the regular fee I was entitled to two glasses of water, a violin lesson and a tour through the streets of Manhattan. Maestro Strasser, besides being my teacher, also became my private NYC tour guide. After every lesson we would have lunch at a restaurant near his home. The menu varied from Chinese to Jewish deli to Italian.
Museums
There is a museum for nearly everything here. Having to practice and with so little time I had to stick with going only to MOMA, the Met, the Frick, the Guggenheim and the American Museum of Natural History. You would need to spend two complete days in each museum to look at everything, because there are paintings that you stare at for many minutes and you never get everything out of them. Paintings are like two-sided mirrors: one side reflects the author and the other one is a reflection of you in it.
My beloved laboratory
Very strange things without any reasonable explanation happen to humans on Manhattan Avenue where I am living. That’s where I spend most of the time, in a nice brownstone with all the small things that give it an “hogar dulce hogar” kind of feeling: the rugs, the furniture, the curtains and decorations (some of which are “strange”). My violin and I spend valuable hours of torture experimenting and trying to give all those black musical dots a sense in this world. Poor walls—I feel bad for them having to listen to me practice every day. I think by now they must be totally deaf. The process of practicing isn’t very exciting to the spectator and sometimes not even to the musician; it requires a great amount of patience and concentration. Knowing how to take full advantage of time is the secret to effective practicing, I believe: doing the most with the least. I have no problem practicing five or six hours every day, but I’ve learned the hard way that even when the spirit and mind have the will and energy to go on, we’re still limited by our bodies.
My landlady, Gena, has been very kind in letting me use her kitchen and all the cooking utensils to make my meals. Fortunately, I still haven’t burned the house. I don’t know what someone else would think about my cooking if they had to eat my experiments, but at least I don’t go hungry.
I think I was very lucky to get this room in this apartment. Living with a piano teacher allows me to practice as much as I want or need to, living in a place where there aren’t any rules about noise and where fortunately there isn’t much coming from the street, either. Gena teaches at the Mannes College of Music, which is another great music school here in New York. Fortunately, her home is not very far from either of our schools; it takes me around 10 minutes to walk to MSM and perhaps 15 minutes on the subway to get to Mannes College. So it’s in a great location.
Next week: part 2
Spreading a musical reputation
By Sofia Rodriguez Mcgoffin
Concert
Javier “Gitano” Estrada
Gypsy guitar and voice
Fri, Sep 26, 7pm
Sala Quetzal
Biblioteca Pública
Reloj 50A
100 pesos
After last week’s success, Javier Estrada performs once again for the people of San Miguel. His message is the life story of the gypsies, one of the most exotic nomadic peoples of the world.
Their marginalized existence and wild reputation have influenced Estrada’s rhythmic style to the core, giving him the passion and dedication for which he has taken the name Gitano. He is a true Gitano, one who has traveled, guitar in hand, to places all over the world with the sole purpose of spreading the music to those who wish to learn the story of the gypsies. As unpredictable as this genre of music may be, one thing is certain—it’s something you don’t want to miss.
An organic necessity
By Peter Levine
Concert
Folklore harp and flamenco guitar
Sergio Basurto
Mon, Sep 22, 7:30pm
Sala Quetzal
Biblioteca Pública
Reloj 50 A
150 pesos, limited seating
The simple melodies of the folk songs seem to grow out of Sergio Basurto’s guitar. They remind me of American Delta Blues—very different musically, but there is that organic necessity about it.
The harp—I imagine dancing and Sergio brings such passion to the flamenco. Overcoming the solitary with the brilliance and power of the music is life-affirming.