November 20, 2009, Concert, David Gilmore Quartet, A rising star comes to San Miguel, Compiled by Atención staff, Pro Musica Concert, Aviv String Quartet, A spectator sport, By Randy Harriman

Concert

David Gilmore Quartet
Mon, Nov 30, 8pm
Auditorium
Bellas Artes
Hernández Macías
300 pesos

A rising star comes to San Miguel
Compiled by Atención staff

David Gilomore

David Gilmore (of course, not to be confused with almost-namesake, Gilmour) has earned a reputation as an internationally acclaimed guitarist, who seamlessly fuses jazz elements, funk, African and world music.

In recent years, the guitarist and composer has recorded and played with some of the top musicians of modern jazz, including Wayne Shorter, Dave Douglas, Muhal Richard Abrams, Sam Rivers, Steve Coleman, Don Bryon, Cassandra Wilson, Uri Caine, Randy Brecker and David Sanborn.

Gilmore has been featured in more than 40 recordings and has been an important presence in the international scene. In the summer of 2001, he launched his first solo album, Ritualism, which was received with international and critical acclaim and was named CD of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association. He has also recently been named in the category of “Rising Stars” by Down Beat magazine.

As a composer, improviser and guitarist, Gilmore pushes the boundaries of improvisational music while managing not to alienate the uninitiated listener. One can hear in his music the diverse musical influences and experiences he has assimilated throughout his career. The exploration of rhythm is a major component of his music; he utilizes many non-Western approaches and integrates them into a modern framework.

Gilmore was a recipient of the Chamber Music America New Works Composer Grant, enabling him to compose a commissioned work entitled “African Continuum,” which was performed in public in the spring and fall of 2003.

His playing has been compared to guitarists with styles as diverse as George Benson, Wes Montgomery, Jimi Hendrix and Leo Nocentelli. In 2006, he recorded “Unified Presence,” which featured Christian McBride, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Ravi Coltrane and Claudia Acuna.

This year, we have the opportunity to hear Gilmore and his quartet at the Auditorium of the Cultural Center El Nigromante, better known as Bellas Artes. You can buy tickets at Border Crossings on Relox, or La Conexión on Aldama.

To find out more about this wonderful musician coming to San Miguel as part of the International Jazz & Blues Festival, check out www.davidgilmore.net. Visit www.sanmigueljazz.com for more information about the festival, see the full program and participating artists.

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Pro Musica Concert
Aviv String Quartet
Sat–Sun, November 21–22, 5pm
St. Paul’s Church
Cardo 6
250/150/80 pesos

A spectator sport
By Randy Harriman

Aviv String Quartet

In 1957, the Gillette Safety Razor Company offered sports fans a booklet titled “Signals: The Secret Language of Baseball.”

Reading it, it was said, would admit one to the arcane world of those nose-touchings, cap-tuggings, belt-hitchings and finger-wigglings that tell players what to do and when to do it. The knowledge thus obtained would increase one’s enjoyment of the national pastime.

Someone should write a similar booklet titled “Signals: The Secret Language of String Quartets,” because watching a string quartet in action can be a spectator sport, too; and as with baseball, an understanding of the signals—the lifted bow, the raised eyebrow, the sidelong glance or the swift upward movement of a violin neck—can greatly enhance the experience of the watchful listener.

San Miguel residents will have an opportunity to experience this phenomenon themselves as the Aviv String Quartet presents two concerts as a part of the current San Miguel Pro Musica season.

The first concert opens with the Quartet No. 62 in C major, Op. 76, No. 3 (Hob.III:77) of Franz Joseph Haydn.

Haydn had just returned from a very successful tour in London in 1796 when he wrote the Op. 76 quartets. While in England, he was impressed with the anthem “God Save the King” and the frequency with which it was played. He decided his native Austria needed a similar anthem, and so he set about writing one.

The result was “God Save Emperor Franz”, the tune which was adopted by the Germans in 1918. The words were changed to “Deutschland, Deutschland Über Alles,” and the song was kept as the German national anthem until the end of World War II. Haydn uses his Emperor’s anthem in the slow movement of this C major quartet, thus the piece has come to be known as the “Emperor.”

The first concert closes with Johannes Brahms’ quartet in C minor, Op.51, No. 1, written between 1868 and 1873. In it, Brahms demonstrates his credentials as a “neoclassic” composer, creating a sound that is distinctly of the Romantic era, but employing the traditional four-movement structure brought to near-perfection by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.

The second concert opens with just a piece of a quartet: the “Quartettsatz” in C minor, D.703 of Franz Schubert. Basically, it’s a torso—the first movement of a twelfth string quartet that Schubert never completed.

The year 1820, it seems, was a bad one for the young composer, who turned 23 that year, and the quartet was just one of several pieces from that time that remained incomplete. Standing in the shadow (at least he felt he was) of the mighty Beethoven was difficult for the rather shy and sensitive young man, and it was not until 1824 that he returned to the string quartet genre.

Speaking of Beethoven, it is his String Quartet No. 8 in E minor, Op. 59. No.2, “Razumovsky No. 2” that closes the second concert.

If Haydn invented the string quartet and Mozart beautified it, Beethoven provided the apotheosis of the genre, particularly with the “late” quartets, i.e., those composed after 1823.

The “Razumovsky” quartets, composed in 1805-06, come from the composer’s middle period, and are precursors to the works that were to follow. They are much longer and more complex than Beethoven’s earlier works, even if they did not quite achieve the grandeur of the late quartets.

The “Razumovsky” quartets were commissioned by a Russian nobleman of that name, who stipulated that the works should contain Russian themes. In compliance with those wishes, Beethoven uses the Russian hymn “Slava” (“Glory”) in the E minor quartet.

Serving as a centerpiece for both of the weekend concerts is Antonin Dvorak’s string quartet No. 12 in F major, the “American.” The quartet derives its name from two factors: It contains themes that sound distinctly American, seemingly quotations of plantation songs and African-American spirituals, and it was written while the composer was in the United States.

In 1892, Dvorak had been invited to become director of the National Conservatory in New York, and while there he was invited to spend two weeks in Spillville, Iowa. Dvorak accepted, and there he was inspired to write his “American” quartet.

The tunes and harmonies he uses in the quartet may sound like quotations of folk tunes, but in fact, Dvorak did not directly quote anything. The tunes that seem so bound to the soil of America are totally constructed by the composer, who simply absorbed the musical ambience of his New World surroundings and fed them back in irresistible melodies.

For more details of the Aviv and to hear them play, go to their website, www.avivquartet.com. Details of this and all of Pro Musica’s concerts are on their website, www.promusicasma.com.

Tickets are on sale at La Tienda in the Biblioteca, Insurgentes 25; La Conexión, Aldama 3; Border Crossings, Mesones 57; St. Paul’s Church, Cardo 6, Monday to Friday, 11am–2pm, and at the door half an hour before concert time.