Feel the rhythm of life with Doc, Gil and Cartas
By Atención staff February 20, 2009 San Miguel de Allende

Benefit Concert for FINO
Doc Severinsen
Gil + Cartas
Mon, Feb 23, 7pm
Teatro Ángela Peralta
Mesones 82
100/225 pesos

Gil Gutiérrez, Pedro Cartas with Doc Severinsen will play for the kids of Jalpa at the February 23 benefit concert.

Guitarist Gil Gutiérrez and violinist Pedro Cartas are both virtuosos, and the two together are electric. Add the soaring trumpet of Doc Severinsen and the experience is incandescent. The trio will appear in a benefit for the local non-profit FINO (see sidebar) that will certainly raise the roof off the Ángela Peralta theater. For fans of classical Spanish music with a jazz flair, this is one of the last opportunities this month to see Gil, Cartas and Doc before they head to the States to continue the “El Ritmo de la Vida” tour. Fans will have to wait until mid-March for their return to the three nightly shows at local restaurant Bella Italia.

Gutiérrez and Cartas have performed many years with internationally acclaimed musicians. The former has played with jazz combos worldwide and toured for several years with Latin-American pop stars Ana Gabriel and Ricardo Arjona, and the latter musician has performed with Cuba’s National Symphonic Orchestra and Querétaro’s Philharmonic Orchestra. Doc Severinsen, best known as the bandleader of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, also toured the US with his own big band and conducted top symphony orchestras.

Severinsen, like many expats, fell in love with San Miguel on his first visit, three years ago. In keeping with this instant love affair, he and his wife, Emily, sold their house in California and bought a home in San Miguel—all in the same day. The serendipity continued when he finally met Gutiérrez and Cartas.

“A neighbor knocked on the door one day and said, ‘I know you are a musician, and there is a group of musicians who you really should see playing at the Bella Italia restaurant. You’ll like them, but you need reservations,’” Severinsen recalls. Although he thought that was the end of the conversation, the woman returned the next day, insisting that he listen to some of the band’s CDs. “This woman was bugging the crap out of me!” Doc said with a light-hearted laugh. “My grandkids, all excellent musicians, were visiting, so I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone and go to dinner and listen to the music.”

It proved to be a captivating evening. “I came to Mexico with retirement on my mind, but after the first eight bars I knew that I would be playing with them for some time. Here was an incredible chamber jazz outfit—exactly like the groups I looked for in my old job. Perfect to play with a symphony,” said Severinsen, who was quickly invited to join the group.

The transition from bandleader to member of a Spanish jazz group with an established musical identity and carefully crafted performance was a challenge, even for him. “When I first played with Gil + Cartas I tried every possible mute to soften the trumpet, so as not to intrude, but I was getting nowhere fast. 

Finally I said “to hell with it!” Who would have thought a full-volume trumpet would fit in with the guitar and violin?” asked Severinsen, who now goes by his “Mexican name,” Don Carlos Hidalgo Soberón.

Fundición Internaciónal de Niños Olvidados, FINO

FINO brings educational resources to rural communities such as Jalpa. Its core program is an after-school scholarship program that offers a dual curriculum of English and leadership skills called “Leadership through Language.” This English-language after-school program works with Mexican nationals, community leaders and English-speaking volunteers. Using an interactive approach using play and volunteer participation the program emphasizes respect and responsibility to nurture leadership skills, encouraging the students to continue with their education. Our Motto is “Read and Lead.” Our students are selected by their teachers to participate. The class is a means for them to challenge themselves academically and be exposed to a foreign language. 

FINO offers other services in addition to our English class. It also runs a bilingual library where students benefit from access to books in both Spanish and English. FINO employs a local mother from Jalpa, as well.

Working with volunteers, FINO provides resources to rural families, resources that will foster greater opportunities for children in rural centers. FINO invites everyone to participate in its annual Burro Festival, on March 28, 2009. 

Advance tickets will be available at a discount at the concert. Regular tickets will be available starting February 24 at Casa Papel, Solutions and at the Jardín March 14 or 21. 

Contacts: Sara and Craig Tylosky, co-directors, finoac@gmail.com , 152-4657, www.finomex.org. 

Surrounded by Baroque
By Rodrigo Treviño

Baroque Music Festival 
Tue–Sat, Mar 24–28
Concerts, Gala Dinner & Baroque Fashion Show
Fábrica La Aurora, Hacienda Santa Maria del Obraje
http://www.baroqueconcerts.com 

One of the attractions of San Miguel for both tourists and residents is the rich and varied cultural life of the city. Art galleries, beautiful buildings, theater and music contribute to the high quality of life of our beloved city.

Back in 2007, some newcomers noticed that even though San Miguel is a Baroque city in terms of architecture, its art and music offerings reflected more modern times. Even the classical music concerts were oriented mainly to romantic and twentieth-century works.

The first Baroque Music Festival was founded on the idea that if people loved the elements of Baroque art visible in San Miguel’s architecture, then residents and visitors also would be interested in related arts, particularly music. That first festival earned great acclaim for the quality of the performances and the unique atmosphere created when Baroque music was played in environments similar to those that actually inspired the composers and original performers back in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

In March, San Miguel hosts for the third time what has become an institution—the annual Baroque Music Festival. The festival blends Baroque music with architecture, paintings, sculptures and decor of the era to create an experience that Stephanie Hough, the festival general manager accurately described as “Surrounded by Baroque.” Seven world-class musical events with 20 musicians from six countries are scheduled for that week.

The festival opens with the first absolute winner in 25 years of the Bach competition in Leipzig, the Italian musician Francesco Corti accompanied by renowned early music specialist Italian Soprano Francesca Boncompagni presenting music that will bring to life the “Passions of the Soul.”

This concert will take place in a hall dressed with Baroque arts and antiques at Fábrica La Aurora. The musical journey continues with Sonatas, concertos for diverse instruments in varied settings. The festival reaches a climax with the reopening of the historic theater of the Hacienda Santa Maria del Obraje, presenting the crown jewels of the high Baroque—Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos played with period instruments, followed by a Gala Dinner and Baroque Fashion Show.

barret sills artistic director

In addition to concerts, the Baroque Music Festival includes a number of free events

for the community, including a lecture and exhibit on Baroque art and antiques, a music appreciation workshop for San Miguel children, an art auction featuring the 2009 festival symbol donated by Canadian artist Toller Cranston, a free concert-lecture designed for the whole family and a private tour of a collection of art and personal belongings of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

People interested in the experience of being “Surrounded by Baroque” can find a complete calendar of events and ticket information at www.baroqueconcerts.com. Although ticket prices are quoted in US dollars, a special exchange rate will be applied to Mexicans and residents of San Miguel. Festival pass tickets may be ordered by contacting: shough@baroqueconcerts.com  or by calling 044 (415) 119-3853. Tickets for individual events will go on sale at several locations in San Miguel starting March 1.

Sergio Basurto concerts continue
By Gabriela Servin

Concert
Harp and Flamenco Guitar
Mon & Thu, Feb 23 & 26, 7:30pm
Sala Quetzal
Biblioteca Pública
Reloj 50A
150 pesos (limited seating)

Sergio Basurto plays traditional rhythms from Latin America and Mexico folklore harp and guitar. Jesuit missionaries took the Spanish or Renaissance harp to the New World in the 1600s, where it developed in a completely different way. The many Latin American harps include the Venezuelan, Mexican and arpa llanera (harp of the plain). They are made of thin wood and are lighter than European harps. Playing style and technique are vibrant and dynamic in contrast to the softer European tone. The sound is bright with a shorter sustain period after the plucking of each note.

From Bizet to the Beatles

Piano Concert
Antonio Cabrero Mendoza
Sat–Sun, Feb 21–22, 5:30pm
Sala Quetzal
Biblioteca Pública
Reloj 50A
100 pesos

Antonio Cabrero, a pianist with a flair for combining his classical training with traditional jazz and his own exotic inspirations, delights San Miguel audiences twice this month. He is known throughout Mexico as a symphony conductor, but his piano concerts have recently gained prominence, due to his passion for improvising over jazz standards of the US and music from Spain and Mexico. During studies in New York, he did extensive research on the classical music of India and many of his improvisations are based in those musical structures.

The Saturday program is “Music from the Alhambra Palace,” with selections from Bizet’s Carmen, Spanish- inspired improvisations by Cabrero, Danzas gitanas by Turina, Concierto de Aranjuez by Rodrigo and selections from Love the Magician by Manuel de Falla.

The Sunday program is “Ragtime, the Beatles and the Piano Man,” with Scott Joplin’s “Solace,” “The Entertainer” and “Maple Leaf Rag”; free jazz improvisations by Cabrero; 15 famous pieces by the Beatles; and “The Piano Man” by Billy Joel.

Modern composers, ancient instruments
By Tim Hazell

Concert
Gonzalo Gomez Martínez & Victor Monterrubio
Fri, Feb 27, 8pm
Teatro Ángela Peralta
Mesones 82
150/100/50 pesos 

Musicians performing in small ensembles can provide the perfect medium for innovative music. Close proximity with the audience creates an excitement that integrates performers and spectators. Gonzalo Gomez and Victor Monterrubio have presented their distinctive music in San Miguel and Mexico for over a decade. Their concert here will combine stringed instruments from other cultures with flutes, drums and percussion from ancient America, Africa and Asia.

Gonzalo Gomez will provide haunting vocals reminiscent of the Indians of America’s Southwest. Discussion and a closer look at the instruments will follow.

I will be joining these talented and versatile artists for the performance, and would like to provide readers with background on their careers to date. Victor Monterrubio is a percussionist and drummer who has made himself an indispensable part of events like the International Jazz Festival. He performs with some of the leading musicians from Mexico and abroad, and has extensive recording experience. Equally adept at the full drum kit or percussion and effects, Monterrubio can work with a dozen drums, chimes and exotic rhythm instruments with ease and skill. His distinctive technique and flair for improvisation have created a demand for his original approach. He spent his formative years acquiring a rigorous grounding in jazz and also is proficient in eclectic musical styles.

Representing Mexico’s ancient traditions, Gonzalo Gómez Martínez provide the full range of time-honored instruments and sounds of Mesomerica. Gomez was born in the historic silver-mining town of Mineral de Pozos and remains close to his native heritage. A founding member of the group Caracol de Fuego (Conch of Fire), the composer and instrument maker has been a pioneer in ethnic and native music for 15 years. He is part of a cooperative renowned for its concerts and the manufacture of instruments unique to ancient Mexico. His replicas of authentic flutes, drums, and other instruments from vanished civilizations are sought after by private collectors and visitors from all over Mexico and abroad.

The role of the musician in Mesoamerican cultures was fundamentally different from its Old World counterpart. Aboriginal music, as depicted in the codices or pictographic books crafted and illustrated immediately after the conquest, was never intended as a display of virtuosity or as transient entertainment. The native artist believed that without his assistance the cosmos would inexorably grind to a halt. 

Visualizations of spirit power have been produced for thousands of years. Materials such as animal bone, incised seed pods and quartzite constitute native sign systems, tactile expressions of spirituality. In Mexico, profiles of skulls, carnivores and supernatural patrons of the hunt were motifs expressing the transition between worlds, and synergies of birth and afterlife, the basis for shamanic healing and ritual. These beliefs are still fundamental to animism and totemism among native clans of the Americas today.

This event integrates 30 different instruments, some dating back 8,000 years, in music that combines movements and improvisations. Scales include primal sonoritie that lift and transport audiences into a world of freshness, natural forces of wind and rain, scents of its flora, and sounds of animals who live in dark forests, humid jungles and arid deserts.

Tickets are available at the Peralta box office, Hernández Macías 62, beginning the week of February 20.

“Koerner Sings Kern” for the girls
By Beverly Russell

Concert 
Koerner Sings Kern 
Sat, Feb 28, 7:30pm 
Auditorio Miguel Malo
Bellas Artes
Hernández Macías 75
175 pesos

Lovers of musical theater and fans of vocalist-pianist Marianne Koerner are eagerly looking forward to the third in her series of annual cabaret performances. If you were lucky enough to see one of her previous shows, “Rogers and Hart” and “The Other Gershwin,” you know that this Broadway and TV star always puts on a sparkling performance.

As in the past, she will be joined on stage by her composer husband Richard, who will narrate and, if we are lucky, do an entertaining soft-shoe shuffle somewhere along the way. “Little by little, she wrote me into the program,” explained Richard during an interview with the duo—married 44 years with three sons and two grandsons. “Actually you inserted yourself,” laughed his wife. The couple has been visiting San Miguel for 15 years, traveling from their other home in Sag Harbor, NY, where they spend the spring and summer months—and plan their next San Miguel cabaret performance.

This year’s show benefits the local group Mujeres en Cambio and showcases the work of one of America’s most beloved composers, Jerome Kern. Kern wrote over 700 popular songs, including such classics as “Ol’ Man River,” “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and “All the Things You Are.” Theater historians agree that his great hits like Show Boat, created in collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II, were more than simple musicals. They were a huge step forward in American musical theater enabling composers, lyricists and librettists to introduce more serious subject matter and comment on the social issues of the day. 

Marianne regards Kern as the “twentieth-century Schubert. He had a remarkable gift for melody,” she says, “and he turned the conventional musical upside down. It wasn’t just Broadway that he changed; he tackled Hollywood as well.”

After his 1927 Show Boat success, Kern was placed under contract by Warner Brothers and produced a series of unforgettable movie musicals. These included Swing Time, starring Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, for which he wrote “The Way You Look Tonight,” winner of the 1936 Academy Award for best song. Another movie, Lady Be Good, won a Best Song Oscar for “The Last Time I Saw Paris.” In 1944, Kern teamed up with Ira Gershwin to write tunes for Cover Girl, starring Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly. It featured the classic “Long Ago and Far Away,” in which Kelly, through then-unusual trick photography, danced with himself.

Marianne’s program’s of 18 songs will include “I’m Old-Fashioned,” “I Won’t Dance,” “Yesterday” and “She Didn’t Say Yes,” and is sure to have audience members humming along and tapping their feet. 

When asked what makes a successful cabaret

From Ragtime to Ravel
By Beverly Russell

Pro Musica Concerts
Richard Dowling
Jazz 

Sat, Feb 21, 5pm
Classical

Sun, Feb 22,5pm
St. Paul’s Church
Cardo 6 
200/150/80 pesos

The charismatic pianist Richard Dowling, who is equally at home playing jazz or classical music, brings his masterly playing and magnetic personality back to San Miguel for two concerts this weekend in the Pro Musica series. The Saturday performance is all about jazz; the second entirely classical, including Chopin, Ravel and Debussy.

Dowling’s program kicks off with eight rags, including some familiar numbers such as “Twelfth Street Rag” by Euday Bowman and the “Magnetic Rag” by Scott Joplin, one of the founders of the style. In 2004, Klavier recorded Dowling’s favorite tunes in this genre on a CD titled: The World’s Greatest Piano Rags. 

The second half of the program includes George Gershwin’s The Six Original Preludes for Piano and Rhapsody in Blue. Gershwin broke into Tin Pan Alley at the age of 15 and at 20 scored his first big hit. He went on to compose hugely successful Broadway musical comedies such as Funny Face and Lady Be Good and endless popular songs. 

Rhapsody in Blue, written in 1924 and first performed with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, is probably Gershwin’s best-known work. Dowling will be playing it, of course, as a solo piano arrangement. The Gershwin Preludes were written in 1926, after the composer had spent time in Paris soaking in the music of Ravel, Debussy, Milhaud and Stravinsky. Each prelude is a short piano piece reflecting on a well-known example of early twentieth-century classical music, as influenced by jazz. 

Dowling is one of the preeminent interpreters of Gershwin music today. In 2001, he released a Gershwin CD Sweet and Low-Down, containing virtually all the solo piano works by the composer. American Record Guide commented on this recording: “Dowling dances through 29 Gershwin numbers with exuberance and a natural feel for rubato. If you love Gershwin, don’t miss this!”

Dowling returns to San Miguel by popular demand and is one of the most talented, charming and communicative performers on the concert circuit today. Undoubtedly his worldwide success lies in his unique ability to offer a heart-touching romantic edge to piano playing, whether it is in the form of a lilting melodic rag or a moody classical nocturne.

Other musical luminaries, such as Leonard Bernstein, Andre Previn and Daniel Barenboim have crossed over in their distinguished careers, facing some criticism in trying to do both popular and classical. Dowling so far has only received raves on both counts.

A selection of his ragtime and classical CDs will be on sale at St. Paul’s on the evenings of the concerts. 

Tickets are available at La Tienda in the Biblioteca, Insurgentes 25; Casa de Papel, Mesones 57; La Conexión, Aldama 3; St. Paul’s office weekdays 11am–2pm; and at the door half an hour before concert time. Reserved tickets will be sold if not paid for by 4:30pm. See www.rpomusicasma.com for details of all Pro Music concerts. 

Beverly Russell studied music in London. She sings in three San Miguel choirs: St. Paul’s, Voces Unides and Madrigals y Mas.

Wild enough for a great music trip

Concert
Swing & TaMo the Wild
Fri, Feb 20, 7:30pm
Teatro Ángela Peralta
Mesones 82
120/90/60 pesos

TaMo TuMa is a singer, performer and a multimedia artist of Mexican and English origins. With lyrical training at Geneva Conservatory, she says she owes her artistry to the voice master/actor Zygmundt Molik of the Grotowski Theatre with whom she trained. Her eclectic musical background of classical, jazz, soul and art-rock and her inventiveness have provided the tools to a style of her own. Since 1986, she has led and produced projects ranging from a 10-piece New Music band to a number of daring duos and solos. She has performed in Berlin, Barcelona, Zürich, Montreux, Ottawa, at the Knitting Factory in New York and the Freiburg International Jazz Festival.

“Swing & TaMo the Wild” is a choice of melodies, mostly jazz songs conveyed with sensitivity and refinement by TaMo TuMa and guitarist Ken Basman from Canada. These artists, true and touching, are just wild enough to make this music trip a great one, their voices mingling easily through sounds and moods inviting you to flow with the music. A special guest bassist will join them for the occasion.

Tickets are on sale at the theater box office, telephone (415) 152-2200.