Cello Concert
Bach and Carrillo
Jimena Giménez Cacho
Mon, Aug 3, 7:30pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Pública
Reloj 50A
150 pesos
Solo cellist and Sonido 13
| Mexican cellist Jimena Giménez Cacho, in a concert series, will perform works from two great composers— J.S. Bach, the beloved and well-known Baroque composer, and the Mexican composer and innovator Julián Carrillo from San Luis Potosí, inventor of the microtonal system called the 13th sound. |  |
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Their work for solo cello was very complex and hard to play at the beginning and, therefore, not often performed.
The first manuscript we find of Bach’s suites is a copy from his wife, Anna Magdalena, who regularly helped him transcribe his music. It appeared between 1727 and 1731. They were not performed as concertos until Pablo Casals brought them to the twentieth century.
Of the six quasi-sonatas from Julián Carrillo, only one was performed by the French cellist Raine Flachot in the fifties. In 2006, Giménez premiered all six, almost 40 years after they were composed.
Giménez says, “With this series, I aspire to bring Julián Carrillo to the level of the great musical composers. His work has brought extremely important innovations to music worldwide.
“With this concert series, I continue to promote the work of this great Mexican composer who, between the twenties and sixties, worked with microtones. He divided the regular tone into sixteenths of a tone which he called Sonido 13.”
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Concert
Lynx Maple and The Beatles
Sun, Aug 9, 5pm
Teatro Santa Ana
150 pesos
Tribute to the Fabulous Four
By David Garza
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A huge fan of The Beatles, Lynx Maple has each year for a decade added a couple of his own versions of classic Beatles songs to his acoustic concert set lists. |
Now he has enough John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison tunes to do a whole solo voice and guitar concert in tribute to the Fabulous Four.
If you’ve ever heard his versions of Beatles songs, you know they reflect the original tunes, but with a personal and unique expression.
Lynx weaves his guitar style and the Beatles music to create a hybrid. He combines African, Arabic, East Indian, Gypsy and Celtic vocal influences with his musical roots in rock, pop, gospel and blues. Sometimes you’ll recognize a song immediately, other times you feel you know the tune or the words, but the title escapes you.
Lynx infuses vibrant life into old standards. After a dream one night, John Lennon wrote the words and melody to “Across the Universe” exactly as he remembered them. The song touched Lynx deeply the first time he heard it and it has become an evolving spiritual mantra over the years. “It connects me to who I am,” he says, “and I hope it will connect you to who you are.”
Be warmed and revived by the music of three Beatles songwriters, as sung by Lynx Maple, in this first-time event. Tickets are available in advance and at the door.
Program
Johann Sebastian Bach
Cello Suite No. 1 in G major: Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Minuet, Gigue
Julián Carrillo (1875-1964)
First Quasi-sonata in ¼-tone for Cello (1959)
Dedicated to J.S. Bach
I-Like recitativo, II-Like recitativo, III-Finale
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Concert
The Next Generation
Collar de Viento
Sat, Aug 8, 5pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25
60 pesos
The wind’s necklace
By Guillermo Méndez
| Even primitive cultures have music. Making music is apparently as natural as sleeping, eating and procreating. We know the ancient cultures of Mexico—Olmec, Aztec, Maya and others— incorporated music into their rituals. | |
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The instruments of these pre-Hispanic cultures are well known to us. Examples of the drums, rattles and flutes are easy to find in the world’s great museums. The instruments are depicted frequently in paintings and sculpture. Today artisans in Mexico design pre-Hispanic musical instruments and occasionally we can hear these instruments being played.
Some of you may remember Dr. Morton Stith, a Biblioteca lecturer on art and Mexican history. While he lived and taught in San Miguel for 10 years, he also led tours to nearby sites. On one of these tours he confessed to a bus full of people his dream of creating an “orchestra” of Mexican children trained to play the instruments of their ancestors—that is, drums, clay flutes and gourd rattles—but he told the group he had no money to fund the project. A few members on that bus generously gave Dr. Stith several thousand dollars to start his “orchestra.” That was 10 years ago.
Newly arrived in San Miguel in 1998, I helped Dr. Stith found the Biblioteca’s workshop in pre-Hispanic music for young people. Having spent the past five summers in San Miguel, I had visited Pozos every year and bought replicas of musical instruments to take back and use in my community college humanities classes. A few of the Pozos artisans who made the instruments also played them with performance groups.
Caracol de Fuego was one such group, and I had gotten to know its members over the years. When Dr. Stith told me he was looking for teachers for the workshop, I recommended two of them to him: Nestor Vargas and Gonzalo Gómez. After they were hired to teach, Dr. Stith asked me to serve as volunteer coordinator of the project. I agreed and have served as coordinator for over 10 years.
The Biblioteca’s workshop in pre-Hispanic music for young people began in May 1999, when an announcement on the local radio station brought in 25 Mexican children, ages 8 to 12, for the first classes. After about a year of classes we had several youngsters who played well enough to perform in public. We named this first performance group Collar del Viento (The Wind’s Necklace), alluding to the manifestation of the Mesoamerican god, Quetzalcoatl, as the Wind God, Ehecatl.
Over the past several years the size of Collar has varied from four to eight members. The group has made a CD and a DVD, and they have performed at schools, private parties, Teatro Ángela Peralta, Teatro Santa Ana, local community events and, perhaps most memorably, in front of the Parroquia for 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Rigoberta Menchu.
Collar del Viento still performs, and three of its current four members have been with the group since its inception. Over the past 10 years I have seen these three grow from children to young adults. I have always been aware of the need to develop a “farm team”; I knew we would not have the current members forever.
However, efforts to train the next generation have not been successful until very recently. Gonzalo has continued to offer classes at the Biblioteca (Nestor left a few years ago) and now, after about a year, he has several youngsters who are quite capable of public performance. Integrating the two groups over the past several weeks has been relatively easy, due to the ability and musical skill level of the individual players. This new incarnation of Collar del Viento has nine members (almost the size of an orchestra!) and plays in public for the first time at the Biblioteca. Collar del Viento always performs in costume and utilizes the pre-Hispanic ceremonial traditions of incense and flowers.
An audience question and answer session follows the performance. This concert promises to be a lot of fun for everyone; it also encourages these young people to continue their study of the music and culture of their ancestors.
Guillermo Méndez is a Biblioteca lecturer on ancient cultures of Mesoamerica.
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Concert
The Sharpies
Thu, Aug 6, 8pm
Teatro Santa Ana
100 pesos
Electrifying intimacy
By Horatio Pickett
| The fast-moving Sharpies put on a new show August 6, featuring surprise musicians. With Seth Sharp on guitar, Tomás Más on drums and David Concha on bass, the Sharpies last played Teatro Santa Ana to a sold-out crowd back in March. | |
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This time around, says Concha, “We’ve taken the show to new level, with some very pleasant surprises.”
“We’re really excited about this show,” says drummer Más. “A remarkable amount of talent is hidden in San Miguel and we’re ecstatic some of them have agreed to join us on stage for this special show.”
Fresh out of the studio from recording a new album, this is the first glimpse of what The Sharpies have been up to and the latest surprises awaiting their audiences.
The Sharpies are known for their rock performances, but never content to rest on their laurels, they are expanding even further into acoustic and piano arrangements that bring new levels of intimacy and vulnerability to what is already a wild electrifying ride.
“I have an inordinate desire to connect with my audience,” says Sharp. “The shows we do at Teatro Santa Ana allow us to reach an intimate level we cannot match at other venues. That’s one of the reasons playing the Santa Ana is so special for us.”
The show is one night only. Tickets can be purchased in advance at Teatro Santa Ana or at the door; advance purchase is highly recommended.
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