Music, paella and auction at “fun-raising” party
By Doug Robinson September 26, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Jazz Festival “fun-raiser”
Sun, Oct 5, 5pm
Villas Xichú
Camino a Xichú 9, Valle del Maíz
Minimum donation: 500 pesos
http://www.villa-xichu.com  

Doug Robinson and Antonio Lozoya

The Festival Internacional de Jazz y Blues will throw the party of the year at Villas Xichú. Swing and sway to live entertainment by Mexican-Cuban songstress and festival headliner Iraida Noriega; sample delicious paella and other treats; explore this exotic compound of vacation villas; and enjoy multiple chances to win great prizes including free tickets for 2008 Jazz Festival events.

As a special “fun-raising” feature, there will be a silent auction with chances to bid on truly great items including a three-course dinner for two with paired wines from The Restaurant at Sollano 16, a wonderful massage from the most talented hands in town, a 10-session chiropractic treatment and a portrait of yourself or a loved one painted by Richard Trumbull. He created the image for last year’s festival and his work was on display in the Teatro Ángela Peralta lobby throughout the Chamber Music Festival this year.

Marcia Ball  Without question, the 2008 Jazz Festival, November 28–December 4, will be the biggest and most exciting in the history of San Miguel. From the explosive drumming of Antonio Sánchez (drummer for Pat Metheny and three-time Grammy Award winner) to the sassy drawl of Texas blues diva Marcia Ball; from Brazilian singer/songwriter Oscar Castro-Neves (about whom Leonard Feather once wrote,

“He is incapable of creating a dull moment…he is only capable of generating rhythmic, harmonic and melodic joy”) to the cool jazz of pianist and Grammy winner Don Grusin; from six-string bassist extraordinaire Steve Bailey (The Rippingtons, Dizzy Gillespie) to Mexican blues artist and San Miguel favorite Betsy Pecanins and over a half dozen more artists, this festival will be the one we’ll try to top for years to come.

Oscar Castro-Neves The Jazz Festival is striving to keep ticket prices low in order to accommodate local jazz fans, but higher-profile artists, combined with skyrocketing transportation costs, means that the festival budget definitely needs some extra attention, which is why they want to see you at the October 5 event.

To show how much they value your participation, your admission puts your name into a hat for a drawing to win a week-long, all-access pass to the entire festival! You don’t need to bid on auction items—just go and enjoy the beautiful setting, the music, the food and the mellow vibe of fellow music-lovers.

Pro Musica plans varied season
By Bob Kelly

Pro Musica Concerts

M5 Metales de Morelia
Sun, Oct 26, 5pm

German lieder
Sat, Nov 22, 5pm

Handel, Mozart, Schubert songs
Sun, Nov 23, 5pm

Ehecalli Quintet
Sat–Sun, Dec 6–7, 5pm

Matt Bengston
Sat–Sun, Jan 10-11, 5pm

Ensemble Morelia
Sat–Sun, Jan 24–25, 5pm

Chavez Quartet
Sat–Sun, Feb 7–8, 5pm

Richard Dowling
Sat–Sun, Feb 21–22, 5pm

José White String Quartet
Sat–Sun, Mar 7–8, 5pm

Timothy Fain
Sat–Sun, Mar 21–22, 5pm

St. Paul’s Church
Cardo 6
200/150/80 pesos

Four Ópera de San Miguel finalists

Fri, Nov 21
Teatro Ángela Peralta
Mesones 82
300/150/50 pesos 

M5 Metales de Morelia

Pro Musica presents the most varied series of concerts in its six-year history in the 2008–09 season. Among the 17 concerts, a world premiere and the first opera program are on offer, as well as many outstanding performers from the US and Mexico.

“This will be by far the strongest schedule of concerts that we have offered to lovers of classical music in San Miguel,” said Michael Pearl, president of the Pro Musica board. 

Among the highlights are three concerts by finalists of the Ópera de San Miguel competition last March and performances by violinist Timothy Fain, a favorite as a soloist and member of the Rosetti String Quartet at the recent summer chamber music festival, and pianist Richard Dowling, who captivated audiences at his Pro Musica concerts in March.

The season opens with a concert October 26, by the M5 Metales de Morelia, hailed as the “finest active brass ensemble in all of Mexico” by Fred Mills, the founder of the renowned Canadian Brass. The group has performed over 100 concerts throughout Mexico. Earlier this year, M5 made its North American debut with performances in Texas, Nebraska, Vermont, Colorado and Alberta, Canada. The program will span 400 years of classical and popular music, from Bach and Mozart to Gershwin, the tango, Mexican favorites and film music.

Pro Musica teams up with Ópera de San Miguel to present three concerts November 21–23. Returning November 21 are four finalists from the March opera competition singing dramatic arias from popular operas such as Carmen, La Bohème and I Pagliacci, passionate Spanish songs and soaring Zarzuela, climaxing in a powerful new arrangement of a Mexican favorite. Concerts at St. Paul’s will include German lieder and songs by Beethoven, Dvorák, Vivaldi, Scarlatti and Rossini on November 22 and songs by Handel, Mozart, Schubert, Verdi, Fauré and other composers on November 23.

The Ehecalli Quintet of Guanajuato, led by pianist Ana Cervantes, returns December 6–7 with a program of works by Telemann, Poulenc and Mendelssohn and several twentieth-century pieces, and a second program of compositions by Donizetti, English composer John Rutter and a piece commissioned by Ehecalli.

The rising young Philadelphia pianist Matt Bengston devotes a concert on January 10 to J. S. Bach’s complete Goldberg Variations, which he played recently in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. The concert on January 11 includes works by Scriabin, Szymanowski, Chopin and Lizst.

The Ensemble Morelia, in period dress, gives two concerts January 24–25 in a candlelit St. Paul’s church. The four musicians and five singers present complete scenes from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute on January 24 and excerpts from Carmen, The Tales of Hoffman, Tosca and other operas on January 25. 

Pro Musica presents the world premiere of a work it commissioned by US composer Samuel Zyman at concerts February 7–8 by the Chavez Quartet. The Chavez group appeared at the recent summer chamber music festival and presented the world premiere last January of a piece by the Mexican composer Jesús Guitiérrez that Pro Musica also commissioned.

Richard Dowling

Pianist Richard Dowling returns February 21–22 with two concerts of classical and popular works. His concerts of blues and ragtime last March were hailed by Atención reviewer John Bills “as a virtuoso extravaganza that brought the audiences to its feet.” Bills also praised Dowling for his “prodigious technique and innate musicality.” 

The José White String Quartet, a favorite at previous summer chamber music festivals and Pro Musica concerts, appears March 7–8. During one of the group’s US tours, The Plain Dealer of Cleveland said that “their rhythmic intensity was exhilarating, their emotional involvement electrifying.”

Timothy Fain

Closing the season March 21–22 is violinist Timothy Fain, who was selected by Symphony magazine as one of its “Up and Coming Young Musicians of 2006” and was a Strad magazine 2007 “Pick of Up and Coming Musicians.” Fain was the “voice” of Richard Gere’s violin in the movie Bee Season.

Pro Musica has begun a drive to increase the number of its Patron Members, Pearl said, to build up reserves to help increase fees for its artists and commission new music, especially by Mexican composers. Membership benefits in every category include concert tickets, parties and dinners to meet the artists. 

All concerts start at 5pm at St. Paul’s Church, except the November 21 performance at Teatro Ángela Peralta. Tickets are available two weeks before each performance at La Tienda in the Biblioteca Pública, Insurgentes 25; Casa de Papel, Mesones 57; La Conexión, Aldama 3; St. Paul’s office weekdays 11am–2pm; and at the door one hour before concert time.

For further details see the Pro Musica website at www.promusicasma.com. 

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

My Arab experience
Part 2 (continued from September 19)
By Turkkan Osman

I was exposed to Arab music August 9–16 at a small festival at Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts. I was able to make this trip thanks to a very kind and lovely woman who spends a relatively great amount of time in San Miguel.

She heard me improvise on violin and piano in one of my recitals in San Miguel and felt a close relationship to this other kind of music, so she told me about this retreat and the faculty, of which Simon Shaheen is the director. He graduated from Manhattan School of Music some years ago and currently lives here in New York, although his life is “on the road”—he tours around the world in ensemble, doing concerts and lectures/conferences. My benefactor was able to get me a full scholarship and paid for my transportation so I wouldn’t have to pay anything. She also made sure I would have the best teacher at the retreat, Simon Shaheen. 

Another great surprise was that I made this trip with a new friend, a Mexican percussionist who was also coming from Mexico City to this retreat for the first time. We got to know each other very well. The first day we were very polite, but as the days passed we acted as if we had known each other for a long time—actually, that’s what most of the people from the retreat thought. So it was nice to share this experience with someone from my good old Mexico. 

This was a unique experience because I’ve never actually played this kind of music. The first thing with which I encountered trouble was the use of quarter tones. Classical music is played with whole tones and half-tones, and when somebody plays a quarter-tone the immediate reaction for a classically trained musician is, “that’s out of tune,” but intonation is something totally relative. What is intonation? So I had to “train” my ear to be able to hear those quarter-tones. Fortunately, I wasn’t playing Indian music, because they use an eighth-tone. 

I also learned the principles of improvization (Takasim). There’s an order to it: where to begin, how to build up and where and how to return. There were some theory and history classes that were interesting because one could get an insight into the structure of this music. Arab music is horizontal, meaning that there is no harmony, it’s only melody. The two most important elements are different rhythms and the maqams. In Western music we have A-major or C-minor, but in Arabic music there are different modes and scales (maqams) like the Bayyati, Hijaz and Rast.

Something that I found interesting about this music is that throughout the centuries it has maintained its essence; the principles are still very strong. In my opinion, this can be both good and bad. For example, in Western music we don’t know how baroque music really was played, because once a composer of that time died his music was literally forgotten. Once Bach died, nobody was interested in playing his music anymore, and the same thing happened with most of the composers. It wasn’t until the romantic period that Bach’s music came to life again thanks to composers like Mendelssohn, but by then musicians had a totally different way of thinking and playing, so you can imagine the end result.

Arabic music hasn’t lost this—we can have a pretty accurate idea of how this music was played centuries ago because it’s a cultural tradition that has been passed on from one generation to another. When different cultures went to war there was a fusion in musical styles, but the end result still wasn’t very far away from the original.

As in nearly everything, only by breaking the rules can a new path be opened. You name it, whether it’s music, literature, painting, sculpture, politics or science. It’s thanks to those few people who dared to try something new and different without knowing what would happen that art and science has evolved. So…there’s always a duality to everything. 

The people I met were very interesting. I think the majority were Lebanese, a couple were Palestinian, there were two Turks and a lot of North Americans who were attracted to this music and wanted to learn more about it. Nearly everyone spoke Arabic (besides English, of course), and there were also a couple of students who spoke some Spanish. 

Taking advantage of my trip to Holyoke I decided to visit Nigel Coxe, a dear friend who lives in Amherst. Many of you have heard him play at St. Paul’s Church. It was very nice to see him again. He took me to Tanglewood to hear the open dress rehearsal of the Boston Symphony (Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherezade, The Bruch G-minor violin concerto with Pinchas Zukerman and Rapsodie Espagnole by Ravel under the direction of Miguel Harth-Bedoya).

While I was at the Aspen Festival and School, Harth-Bedoya was our conductor for one of the concerts; it was funny seeing him again there at Tanglewood. It was a real treat for my ears, and the place is gorgeous; it reminded me a lot of Aspen. Everything is close to nature, not out of context. 

I spent a very special couple of days with Nigel. We ate, talked and laughed and he gave me a tour around his town. I liked the feeling that the town had: very calm and relaxed and everything was green! But somehow I missed the big city, so I was also very content to be back in the melting pot. 

Gypsies and destiny
By Dick Avery

Concert 
Javier “Gitano” Estrada
Gypsy guitar and voice 
Fri, Oct 3, 7pm
Sala Quetzal
Biblioteca Pública
Reloj 50A
100 pesos

A tall, aristocratic man with shoulder-length salt-and-pepper hair, a face right out of central casting of a Spanish grandee, dressed entirely in black except the blood-red boots, strides silently out to a chair bearing a Spanish guitar. Without a word, he sits. Without breaking the solemn expression, his fingers begin to fly over the strings, his boots urgently tapping out the tempo. 

He is Javier Estrada, a San Miguel native from the ancient Montoya gypsy family, originally from Cordova, Spain. By the time he was nine years old, Estrada had heard many great gypsy flamenco guitar players and knew he was destined to follow in their footsteps.

Latin rhythms with heart
By Ann Jaymes

Concert
Folklore harp and flamenco guitar
Sergio Basurto
Mon, Sep 29, 7:30pm 
Sala Quetzal
Biblioteca Pública
Reloj 50 A
150 pesos, limited seating

I first met Sergio Basurto three years ago when I was sitting in a cafe at the Jardín and looked up to see a man walking by holding a folklore harp. Since I play the harp, too, I ran after him and excitedly engaged him in conversation. He invited me to one of his concerts and I was hooked.

He has extensive knowledge of Latin American rhythms—Brazilian bossa novas, Paraguayan polkas and Argentine tangos and milongas. These he expertly interprets on the harp, with the full range of emotions appropriate to each one. Then he picks up his guitar and plays the haunting and passionate rhythms of flamenco. His dexterity is amazing and what makes this all the more surprising is that he is virtually self-taught. The harp is difficult enough to play, but flamenco guitar even more so, and for this he has my unending admiration, not to mention envy.

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