Canada premiere of “Dance, Song, and Celebration” Dance, Song, and Celebration, the Foundation for Iberian Music’s 2012 commission from distinguished composer Benet Casablancas, will soon have its Canada premiere in Toronto. Croatia’s Cantus Ensemble joins the Canadian Sinfonietta for a program dedicated to contemporary composers, which features Casablancas’ work alongside Michael Pepa (Canada), Berislav Šipuš (Croatia), and Mirela Ivičević (Croatia). (Visit the Sinfonietta’s site, linked above, for the full program.) The concert will be held November 16 at 7 pm, at the Glen Gould Studio. (Those of you in Toronto may purchase tickets here.) On a related note, we will soon have a video of the commission’s premiere (with the Perspectives Ensemble) at the Morgan Library available, so stay tuned for that addition to our archive!
Perspectives Ensemble review in Scherzo Magazine Madrid classical music magazine, Scherzo, reviews the Perspective Ensemble‘s recording Montsalvatge (Naxos) in their current (October 2014) issue! The Perspectives Ensemble is a resident artist at the Foundation for Iberian Music. This album echoes their 2012 program from the Morgan Library and Museum‘s concert celebrating the centenary of Catalonian composer Xavier Montsalvatge. Read the review below.
Reminder: “Passion and Playfulness,” upcoming lecture-recital with pianist Joseph Smith MONDAY! October 27! 11 am! Join us at City College (Shephard Hall, Rm. 95) for an informative morning of wonderful Latin piano music. Pianist Joseph Smith will be doing a lecture-recital on the links between Western classical and vernacular Latin-American traditions, such as tango and milonga. For a preview, check out this excerpt from a lecture Mr. Smith did years ago, featuring a performance of “Te quiero tanto,” which he will be playing at next week’s program. Program: Ignacio Cervantes (1847-1905) ¡Te quiero tanto! (I love you so much!) ¡Pst! La celosa (The jealous woman) Juan Morel Campos (1857-1896) ¡No me toques! (Don’t touch me!) ¡Si te toco! (Yes, I touch you!) Alberto Williams (1862-1952) Nostalgia de la Pampa (Nostalgia for the Pampa) Requiebro a las caderas (Admiring her hips) Ernesto Nazareth (1863-1934) Pierrot Manuel María Ponce (1882-1948) Malgré tout (Despite all) The event is free and open to the public. No reservation is required. City College of New York Shephard Hall Room 95 160 Convent Ave New York, NY 10031
Upcoming NY Andalus Ensemble Concert The NY Andalus Ensemble, one of the official ensembles sponsored by the Foundation for Iberian Music, will be performing at the Graduate Center’s Elebash Theater at the end of the month. The NYAE celebrates the historical diversity of the Iberian Peninsula through its traditional music and modern compositions with roots in these traditions. Please join us October 30th at 7:30 for an evening of music from al-Andalus! Tickets are $13, $10 for students. They are available online through Ticketweb or directly from the Foundation for Iberian Music office. (Please call ahead at (212) 817-1819 to confirm that we are in the office. The office will be closed for the week of October 13.)
Program announced for upcoming talk with David Harrington As you, faithful students, may know, the lectures/conversations in our Music in 21st Century Society series typically feature a musical performance. This year’s talk between David Harrington (of Kronos Quartet) and NPR’s Brooke Gladstone will feature a pair of performances by members of Face the Music. We are pleased to announce the final program. The Pannonia Quartet will perform Serbian composer Aleksandra Vrebalov’s quartet Pannonia Boundless, which was commissioned by the Kronos Quartet in 1997, and Quartet: This Side Up will perform an excerpt from the second string quartet by their own multi-talented violinist, Paris Lavidis. Face the Music is a program for gifted teenaged musicians at NYC’s Kaufman Center. It is the only teen ensemble in the US dedicated to the works of living composers. The Kaufman Center also offers a Special Music School, which is the only full time music high school in NYC and boasts the Kronos Quartet among its mentors. Please be sure to join us for an evening with these talented young musicians. (Tickets)
Kronos with Laurie Anderson at BAM The Kronos Quartet–whose founding member, David Harrington, will soon be appearing in our Music in 21st Century Society lecture series–recently concluded a week-long run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, performing Landfall, a new work inspired by the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, with composer Laurie Anderson. The multi-media work is a 100 minute song cycle (“stories with tempos”) for a singer with string quartet and electronics, which are comprised of both pre-recorded sounds and live processing of the players. Behind the musicians were projected images, synced at a climactic moment to the rhythm of the violinists. In the work, Anderson recalls seeing her basement flooded, where a lifetime of mementos floated in the filthy water: “How beautiful. How magic. And how catastrophic.” Using this experience of loss during the hurricane as a springboard, Anderson journeys through our larger experience of loss as citizens of the planet–not merely human, individually felt loss, but biological, environmental loss, as in a passage where Anderson recites a list of species that have gone extinct. From the destruction of the nests we have built for ourselves to the destruction of the natural world, what is the price of our tenure on this planet? The work seizes a striking opportunity to take a moment from local New York life and use music, the so-called universal language, to relate it to a global concern. Kronos’ David Harrington will be joining us at the Graduate Center on October 22 to discuss his part in this dialogue between modern life and modern art. Please join us then for our conversation not only about Kronos’ contributions to the string quartet, but the string quartet’s continuing role in contemporary classical.
Welcome Carlos Arnasay to the Granados Centenary Committee We’d like to welcome Carlos Arnasay as the newest committee member for the upcoming Granados Centenary! Carlos Arnasay (ARCM) studied singing at the Escuela Superior de Canto as well as piano and composition at the Real Conservatorio Superior, both in Madrid, and composition and conducting at the Royal College of Music in London. In Vienna he pursued conducting studies with Jacques Delacôte, a pupil of Hans Swarovsky. He has conducted the London Symphony Orchestra, Pilsen Radio Orchestra (Czech Republic), the National Orchestras of Cuba and Peru, SODRE (National Broadcast) Orchestra of Uruguay, Trujillo Symphony Orchestra (Peru), Falcon Symphony Orchestra (Venezuela), etc. His involvement in opera has landed him jobs with the Earls Court arena production of Carmen (in Zurich, Munich and Berlin, with José Carreras leading one of five different casts), Costa Rica Chamber Opera ( national premiere of Suor Angelica), Midsummer Opera, Blackheath Opera, Floral Opera, etc. As an operatic chorus master Carlos has worked with the Ambrosian Opera Chorus (assistant to John McCarthy), Classical Productions Chorus (assistant to Terry Edwards and Simon Joly), Chelsea Opera Group, Midsummer Opera, etc. In 2009 he founded the London Lyric Chorus, which featured in a commercial recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra. In Lima he is music director of the new Dompablo Operetta and Zarzuela Company. Carlos’s professional chamber choir, Coro Cervantes, was founded in 1995 and is now firmly established as a successful and prestigious group in the UK and Spain. They have released five CDs to date (Guild, Sello Autor, Signum) which have been highly acclaimed in the UK and abroad (Gramophone Critic´s Choice/CDs of The Year, Best Choral CD of 2010/The New CD Show Classic FM, etc) and have performed extensively in Spain, Holland, Mexico, Russia and the UK (Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, St. John’s Smith Square…). Carlos is a regular guest conductor of the National Choir of Spain, with concerts at the National Auditorium in Madrid and broadcasts on National Spanish Radio. As a teacher, Carlos works in Latin America since 1999, with regular visits to Mexico, Peru and Cuba. In London he is one of the teachers of the Lacock International Choral Courses (with courses in the UK, Spain and Mexico), Floral Opera Workshops and has also taught Vocal Repertoire and Technique at the City Literary Institute and Spanish and Latin American vocal repertoire at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, besides working as a private voice teacher. Since 2003, he is Music Director and a member of the jury of the Trujillo International Singing Competition (Peru). He writes and translates for EMI Classics, Naxos, Brilliant, and has been invited on several occasions to BBC radio programs such as In tune and The Choir. He has compiled a top selling CD for the National Gallery in London (The Sacred made Art) and, as a recording producer, he has worked with the Musikene School in San Sebastian and has released the world premiere recording of Juan José, an opera by Pablo Sorozábal. He has worked alongside artists like Harry Christophers and Joyce DiDonato in masterclasses, and is Patricia Petibon´s language coach in her latest CD for Deutsche Grammophon. Carlos has been a member of the Iberian and Latin American Music Society (ILAMS).
Composer’s Commission concert next week, new publications Our 2013 Composer’s Commission concert is rapidly approaching, and we have some good news! Firstly: Please join us next week, September 8th, for the premiere of Albert Guinovart’s exciting new piano work, Skyshadows. The concert will be held at the Instituto Cervantes at 7 pm. Tickets are $15 to the public ($10 ICNY members). They are available online, by phone (212-308-7720), or may be purchased in person at the institute until 6:30 pm the day of the concert, so be sure to plan ahead! For Skyshadows, Guinovart drew inspiration from the ever shifting landscape of shadows cast by the buildings of NYC, creating a light, tuneful work that begins with a nod to Cole Porter’s “I Happen to Like New York.” With his program of old and new Catalonian works, Guinovart continues a century-long musical dialog between Iberia and New York. Today’s issue of El Diario featured an article on Guinovart and our Composer’s Commission series, so be sure to check it out. Lastly–because, who can get enough of seeing their name in print?–we would like to offer a sneak preview of the work, which is soon to be published by international powerhouse Music Sales. Further information to come.
Growing list of presenters for our Fandango conference Week by week, the list of prospective presenters for our upcoming conference on the fandango grows. As we announced previously, Elisabeth LeGuin will be our keynote speaker, and we have several new confirmed speakers. Below is the full list of those invited to attend and the titles of their papers. Abstracts to follow. Our CFP is now closed. The final program of presentations will be available in spring 2015. Keynote Speaker Elisabeth Le Guin Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Music, UCLA “Tonadilla and Fandango: How a Genre and a Practice Intersect and Diverge” Presenters Thomas Baird Bruno Barta Sociologist and Doctoral Candidate in Ethnomusicology Son Jarocho in New York: Jarana and fandango as symbols of a new Mexican identity” Miguel Ángel Berlanga Profesor Titular, Música, Universidad de Granada “The Fandangos of Southern Spain in the Context of other Spanish and American Fandangos” Francisco Bethencourt Llobet Associate Professor, Musicology, Universidad Computense de Madrid Tóca por Fandangos!: towards a cultural and ethnomusicological approach to Fandango(s) in Contemporary Flamenco” Guillermo Castro Buendia Musicologist specializing in flamenco “Rhythmic evolution in the Spanish fandango: Binary and ternary rhythms.” Claudia Calderón Saenz pianollanero.com; Fundación Editorial Arpamérica “Musical Aspects of the Joropo in Colombia and Venezuela” Ishtar Cardona “Crossing borders: the practice of Son Jarocho facing its own limits.” Lou Charnon-Deutsch Professor, Hispanic Languages and Literature, Stony Brook University “‘Like Salamanders in a Flame’ The Early European Love Affair with the Fandango” Alex E. Chavez Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Fellow of the Institute for Latino Studies, University of Notre Dame “Vaivenes, del Cuerpo al Verso: On the Expressive and Political Anatomy of the New Years Eve Topada in Xichú, Guanajuato” Loren Chuse Independent Scholar Walter Clark Professor of Musicology, University of California, Riverside “The Malagueñas of Breva, Albéniz, and Lecuona: From Regional Fandango to Global Pop Tune” Tony Dumas Visiting Assistant Professor, Music, SUNY Brockport Presenting on flamenco in diaspora. Reynaldo Fernández Manzano Director del Centro de Documentación Musical de Andalucía, Presidente de la Asociación Española de Documentación Musical (AEDOM) “The Fandango as Improvised Music and Poetry: the Trovo of Alpujarra” Rafael Figueroa Hernández Investigador del Centro de Estudios de la Cultura y la Comunicación de la Universidad Veracruzana “Yo no soy marinero, soy capitán: Contemporary sociopolitical uses of fandango and son jarocho” Nubia Florez Forero Universidad Del Atlántico – (Avalado), CEDINEP “The Fandango as a Space of Resistance, Creativity, and Liberty” Hazel Franco Coordinator of the B.A. in Dance and the Dance and Dance Education Certificate programme at the Department of Creative and Festival Arts, The University of the West Indies Presenting on the carnival traditions in Trinidad and Tobago folk dances Matteo Giuggioli Zurich University Institute of Musicology “Luigi Boccherini’s ‘Afandangado’ Quintets: Sound, Form and Plot” Theresa Goldbach Doctoral candidate in Dance, University of California, Riverside “Fandango in the Franco Era: the Politics of Classification” K.Meira Goldberg Martha Gonzalez Assistant Professor of Chicano Studies, Scripps College Sonic (Trans)Migration: Rhythmic Intention in Zapateado Jessica Gottfried Independent Scholar “The fandango as fiesta and the fandango within the fiesta: tarima, cante and dance “ Gabriela Granados American Bolero Dance Company Michelle Habell-Pallán Associate Professor, Department of Gender, Women & Sexualilty Studies. Director, UW Libraries Women Who Rock Oral History Archives. University of Washington. “Women Who Rock the Fandango: Lessons in Convivencia” Nancy G. Heller Professor of Modern & Contemporary Art History, University of the Arts (Philadelphia, PA) “Spanish and Hispanic American Depictions of Dancing in El velorio del angelito.” José Miguel Hernández Jaramillo Researcher, Universidad de Sevilla; doctoral candidate in ethnomusicology, Escuela Nacional de Música de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. “The fandango in nineteenth century flamenco.” Claudia Jeschke University Professor Doctor, Dance Studies, University of Salzburg; Director, Derra de Moroda Dance Archives at the University of Salzberg “Les Choses Espagnoles: Research into the Hispanomania of 19the Century Dance” Javier Jiménez Belmonte Associate Professor of Spanish, Chair, Modern Languages and Literatures, Fordham University “Fandangomania: proceso al fandango” Alan Jones “In Search of the Fandango” Adam Kent Instructor, Manhattan School of Music; Adjunct Professor, Brooklyn College. “Enrique Granados’s Fandango del Candil and Manuel de Falla’s Danza de la Molinera” Michael Malkiewicz Salzburg Ceci n’est pas un fandango Peter Manuel Professor, Music Department, CUNY Graduate Center “The Fandango as a Family of Musical Forms in the Afro-Hispanic Atlantic.” Gabriela Mendoza García Independent Scholar “Envisioning the Nation through Dance – the Teaching and Performance of the Jarabe Tapatío in 1920s and 1930s Mexico within the Educational System” Alfonso Mogaburo Cid Cantaor de flamenco, Dientes de Caramelo “Republicanismo, Revolución y Temática Política en las Letras del Fandango” John Moore Muir College “Cante Libre is not free – contrasting approaches to fandangos personales“ Kiko Mora Universidad de Alicante “An Introduction to Popular Spanish Music in the USA in the Nineteenth Century” Paul D. Naish, Ph.D. Substitute Assistant Professor of Social Science and History, Guttman Community College, CUNY “The Revels of a Young Republic: Revolutionary Possibilities of the Fandango in Timothy Flint’s 1826 Francis Berrian” Faustino Nuñez Musicologist y catedrático de flamenco en el Conservatorio Superior de Córdoba “La música y el Atlántico, variaciones sobre el fandango antiguo y el modern” Erica Ocegueda PhD student in Theater and Performance of the Americas, Arizona State University “Frozen Footwork: Folklórico Falters Following Fandangos Footsteps” Álvaro Ochoa Serrano Profesor-Investigador en el Centro de Estudios de las Tradiciones de El Colegio de Michoacán, Director, “Personajes y tradiciones populares del Occidente de México.” “Mitotl, Fandango y Mariache o Mariachi, un espacio de fiesta común” Raquel Paraiso Independent Scholar “Re-contextualizing Traditions and the Construction of Social Identities through Music and Dance: un fandango en Huetamo, Michoacán” Allan de Paula Oliveira Professor of Social Sciences, West Parana State University (UNIOESTE) “Brazilian Fandango: traditionalism, identity and policies of cultural heritage” Ricardo Pérez Montfort Centro de Investigacione y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) “The Fandango as a Manifestation of the Circulation of Culture between Mexico and the Caribbean” Aurèlia Pessarrodona Centro Studi sul Settecento Spagnolo – Università degli Studi di Bologna “El gesto coréutico en la música ibérica de la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII: una propuesta de interpretación históricamente informada del fandango” Wilfried Raussert Bielefeld University, Center for InterAmerican Studies “‘When Fandango Hits the Border, When Music Comes to Town’: Mobilizing Music, Participatory Cultures, and Translocational Community-Building in the 21st century” Lénica Reyes Zúñiga Doctoral candidate, Escuela Nacional de Música, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México “Musical relations between Spanish malagueña and fandango in the nineteenth century” María José Ruiz Mayordomo Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Compañía de Danza “Esquivel”) and Aurèlia Pessarrodona (Centro Studi sul Settecento Spagnolo – Università degli Studi di Bologna) “Choreological Gestures in Iberian Music of the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century: a Proposal for Historically Informed Interpretation of the Fandango” Lénica Reyes Zúñiga Doctoral candidate in ethnomusicology, Escuela Nacional de Música de la UNAM “Musical relations between Spanish malagueña and fandango in the nineteenth century” Craig Russell Professor of Music, California Polytechnic State University “The Fandango in the music of Murcia and Mozart: a Prism of Revolution in the Enlightenment” Ramón Soler Díaz Professor of Mathematics and flamencologist “The Fandango in Málaga: From Danced Cante to Desgarrado Cante” Estela Zatania Editor, deflamenco.com “The Physical Forms and Cloaked Politics of Flamenco Fandangos” Brook Zern Flamencoexperience.com Presenting on flamenco fandangos.
Tania Leon’s “Homenatge” Now In Print The 2011 Composer’s Commission, Homenatge, by distinguished professor, composer, and conductor Tania León is now available as sheet music! The work is for piano solo. Her music is available from Peer Music, exclusively through Hal Leonard. The work was premiered in 2011 by Adam Kent, to whom the work is dedicated. It has since been performed at the Burgos International Music Festival, and with the addition of choreography by Pedro Ruiz at the Dance Theater of Harlem. Alas, audio and video of Homenatge are not available online, but as a sampling, please enjoy this video of selections from The Dance Theater of Harlem’s productions set to Leon’s work In Motion.