NYC Latin American Cultural Week, Nov 10–19 In just over a week, New York City’s annual Latin American Cultural week kicks off. The festival runs November 10–19 and encompasses dozens of concerts, dance and theatrical performances, film screenings, and workshops throughout the city. One participant in this year’s festival is our own colleague Isabel Pérez Dobarro, who contributed to our Granados Celebration and is co-organizing an upcoming conference with us. Her event, “Musica Among Friends,” is Tuesday, November 14th, at 6 pm at Saint Peter’s Church. She will be performing piano works and songs from Isaac Albéniz and Enrique Granados with pianist Rosa Torres-Pardo, who will also be singing.
November NY Andalus Ensemble/Asefa Events Early in November, there are several events in the New York Andalus Ensemble family happening. Under the rubric of Asefa Music (the projects of Samuel Torjman Thomas, who directs the NYAE), there are several music lectures in the coming week, in the northeast: November 1, University of Pennsylvania: Thomas will be giving a lecture at the Traditional Jewish Food Club. (tickets) November 4, Merkin Concert Hall, NYC: Thomas will moderate a Q&A with Israeli singer Yasmin Levy. (tickets) November 5, Rutgers Film Festival, NJ: Thomas will give a musical lecture on the film On the Tigris River. (tickets) November 10, JCC Manhattan: The NY Andalus Chamber Trio kicks off the shabbat with an evening program of food and music, for only $18! (tickets) There will be more NYAE performances by both large and small ensembles in December, so be sure to check back!
Granados Celebration Concludes with a Successful Conference Last week, the conference En ocasión de María del Carmen: Enrique Granados y su época was held at the University of Murcia in Spain, concluding our Granados Celebration programming. Foundation for Iberian Music director and Granados Celebration co-chair Antoni Pizà was a member of the advisory committee for En ocasión de María del Carmen and several of the Foundation’s past and present colleagues participated in the conference. Miriam Perandones (Universidad de Oviedo), who has has been a guest researcher at the Foundation and was a member of the steering committee for the Granados Celebration, presented one of the keynote addresses, “El teatro lírico español o españolizante en la década de los 10 en EEUU: la ciudad de Nueva York. ” She was also on the conference’s advisory committee. Anna Tonna (Hispanic Society of America & Library), who is a frequent collaborator with the Foundation and served on the Granados Celebration steering committee, presented a paper, called,”‘¿Desnuda o vestida?’: Restoring context for a performance practice that recuperates Fernando Periquet’s recited text ‘La maja desnuda’ within Enrique Granados’ song ‘La maja de Goya’ from the Doce Tonadillas al estilo antiguo.” Congratulations to the committees and to our colleagues on an excellent conference, and our gratitude to all of our friends and collaborators who helped us to celebrate Granados’s centenary.
New Series, Music and Visual Cultures, from Brepols A new series edited by RCMI director and Graduate Center faculty member Zdravko Blažeković has just had its inaugural volume released by Brepols. The series, Music and Visual Cultures, will include monographs and essay collections on issues of music iconography and relations between music and the visual arts. Late Eighteenth-Century Music and Visual Culture, edited by Cliff Eisen and Alan Davidson, is the first book in the series, and it includes an essay by Blažeković himself. It is available directly through Brepols for 85€ or from major book retailers.
Antoni Pizà On Radio IB3 Foundation for Iberian Music director Antoni Pizà appeared this past Sunday on Radio IB3’s program La Ruta d’Orfeu, where he met with the host for an informal chat about some selections of music that he has been listening to recently. They discuss Nina Simone, Bach’s chorale Ich ruf zu dir, and the classical works of classical/jazz pianist Friedrich Gulda. Listen to October 15th’s broadcast here. Pizà joins the program around the 16:00 mark.
Angel Gil-Ordoñez’s Recent Lou Harrison Recording Released in Spain Earlier this year, Naxos released a recording of Lou Harrison works by Washington DC’s PostClassical Ensemble. Lou Harrison is one of the great early American modernist composers, and one of the first composers to incorporate elements of “world” music in his work, an influence which can be heard especially in his Grand Duo for violin and piano. The album, Lou Harrison: Violin Concerto / Grand Duo / Double Music (with John Cage), was recorded live in 2016 and features soloists Tim Fain (violin) and Michael Boriskin (piano). It was recently released in Spain and has received mention in some of Spain’s major music periodicals. Ritmo gave the recording four stars (out of five), and Scherzo featured it in their list of October’s “exceptional recordings,” calling it “a simply magnificent disc.” Read the reviews by clicking the images below: Do yourself a favor and take the opportunity to become better acquainted with a wonderful American composer. PostClassical ensemble is directed by Angel Gil-Ordoñez, who is a featured guest director of our resident Perspectives Ensemble.
“En ocasión de María del Carmen” Conference Program The program for the upcoming Granados conference in Alicante, at the University of Murcia, is now available! The conference, “En ocasión de María del Carmen: Enrique Granados y su época,” will be held October 18–20. For attendance information, please visit the conference website. Here is a full list of the presenters and their papers: CARREIRA, Xoán: “Majas y Geishas. Recepción e influencia del japonismo en la obra de Enrique Granados” CARRERES, Curro: “La ópera murciana de Granados, dramaturgia y personajes revisados ante el descubrimiento de la partitura original inédita” ENCABO, Enrique: “La fuerza del regionalismo: Enrique Granados y la ciudad de Murcia” GALLEGO, Eugenia: “Enrique Granados y su relación con Antonio Noguera: Dos Insensatos en la Mallorca finisecular” GARCÍA TORRES, Andrea: “Fenómenos de adaptación, transculturación y alteridad en La gran vía y Certamen nacional: un instrumento en el desarrollo del género chico en Chile” GONZÁLEZ, Dácil: “Granados en el imaginario de Manuel de Falla” LACÁRCEL FERNÁNDEZ, José Antonio: “Contexto social y cultural en el que nace la ópera María del Carmen de Granados” MARIÑO, Borja: “El tratamiento temático en María del Carmen, un acercamiento al verismo español” MARTÍNEZ BELTRÁN, Zoila: “Una Elegía eterna por Granados” MARTÍNEZ RODRÍGUEZ, Juan Manuel: “La influencia del folklore murciano en la ópera María del Carmen de E. Granados” MATÍA, Inmaculada: “Enrique Granados en el cine: Goyescas” MONTORO BERMEJO, Amparo: “Estreno de María del Carmen en Barcelona (1899): ¿Éxito o fracaso? Un análisis a través de la hemerografía catalana interesada.” MURCIA GALIÁN, Juan Francisco: “Fastos conmemorativos en la España de Franco: “Homenaje a Granados” en la IX Demostración Sindical (1966)” PASCUAL LEÓN, Nieves: “Granados en Valencia: Reflexiones sobre la vida musical en el cambio de siglo desde los autógrafos de sus artistas” ROSAL, Mª Isabel: “Enrique Granados y su presencia en la Revista Musical Hispano-Americana” SANCHO GARCÍA, Manuel: “La actividad y recepción de Enrique Granados en Valencia (1893-1912)” SERRANO, Pilar: “Paul Dukas, un olvidado del París de Granados: argumentos para su desatención” TONNA, Anna: “”¿Desnuda o vestida?”: Restoring context for a performance practice that recuperates Fernando Periquet’s recited text “La maja desnuda” within Enrique Granado’s song “La maja de Goya” from the Doce Tonadillas al estilo antiguo.” VALVERDE FLORES, Tamara: “Giros y retornos: tragaluz penetrante en las trayectorias de Enrique Granados y Joaquín Nin” The advisory committee includes the Foundation for Iberian Music’s director, Antoni Pizà, as well as several of our frequent collaborators: – Dr. Walter Aaron Clark (University of California, Riverside) – Dr. Francesc Cortés i Mir (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) – Dra. María Encina Cortizo Rodríguez (Universidad de Oviedo) – Dra. Mutsumi Fukushima (Elisabeth University of Music – Hiroshima) – Luisa Morales (FIMTE- University of Melbourne) – Dra. Miriam Perandones Lozano (Universidad de Oviedo) – Dr. Antoni Pizà (The City University of New York) – Dr. Ramón Sobrino Sánchez (Universidad de Oviedo)
Oct 3: Eduardo Frías Performs Grundman at Carnegie Hall October 3rd, pianist Eduardo Frías will perform the complete works of Spanish composer Jorge Grundman at Carnegie Hall. This concert follows the release of his recording of the works of Grundman, Little Great Stories, on Sony Classical. Grundman (b. 1961) writes in an expressive neo-tonal style that has been compared to eminent Catalan composer Frederic Mompou and film composer John Barry. He has won numerous awards for his composition and his collaborations with the Brodsky Quartet are Spanish Independent Music Award-winning. The celestial opening section of his fantasie, “Who Remembers Beauty When Sadness Knocks at Your Door?”, which Frías performs below, whispers a suggestion of early 20th century French composers, such as Satie or Debussy. Though young, Frías has toured throughout Europe, the Americas, and Africa. His appearances include Hochschule der Künste in Bern (Switzerland), SGAE Madrid and Barcelona Auditoriums, as well as the Juan March Foundation and Auditorio Nacional (Madrid), and he has collaborated with Instituto Cervantes and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Spain in the Cultural Centers of Spain in Bata and Malabo (Equatorial Guinea). Enjoy this aperitif: 8 pm October 3, 2017 Tickets: $20 to $35; student and senior discounts available at Box Office Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall
Recent Paper Given in Bern María Luisa Martínez, guest researcher at the Foundation for Iberian Music, recently gave a paper at a conference at the University of Bern. The conference, held September 7–9, 2017, was entitled Branding “Western Music” and explored “intersections between Western music and the institutionalised management of culture.” Martínez’s paper was called, “Homogenizing Spanish Musical Practices at the Turn of the Century: The Participation of Spain in the International Exhibition of Music and Theater in Vienna 1892.” Spain’s participation in the International Exhibition of Music and Theater in Vienna 1892 was, from an outside perspective, a milestone in the reception and spreading of Spanish music in Europe. Nationally, it represented –after the efforts of several generations of musicians– a highlight in the upliftment of the role played by Spain in the development of Western music through its history and in the achievement of a more sophisticated national musical language, similar to that developed in other European countries since early nineteenth century. This event mobilized musicians from all around Spain moved by the desire for progress of Spanish music. They collaborated in many ways in the organization of the Spanish Section under the leadership of Infanta Isabel de Borbón (1851-1931), a musical activist very well informed of synchronic European music experiences and the chairwoman of the committee responsible for preparing the Spanish participation in Vienna 1892. My research reveals historical aspects of this dynamic and collaborative multidirectional music network which transformed the Spanish musical practices, promoting the recovery of a large part of the Spanish musical heritage from the Middle Ages and onwards, the building of a corpus of Spanish drama music major works (zarzuela and opera) and the production of the first organological and ethnomusicological study in Spain that we currently know, Colección de instrumentos populares de España presentada por S.A.R. la infanta María Isabel Francisca. With this contribution I intend to expand the knowledge of the energetic, enriching and changeable music scene in Spain at the turn of the century and to claim the catalyst figure of Infanta Isabel in the development and shaping of musical disciplines in Spain. María Luisa Martínez Martínez has an International Ph.D. on Musicology (Universidad de Jaén) and is currently a guest researcher and collaborator at The Foundation for Iberian Music, Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Her research focuses on music in the Bourbon Spanish court during the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and on the evolution of flamenco guitar playing. Since 2012, she works at United Nations International School (New York).
New Fundación Juan March Season September 19th, the Fundación Juan March (Madrid) held a presentation to discuss their new season, with music program director Miguel Ángel Marín. The presentation video is available on their Facebook page or through Vimeo. You can also read a report on their new season here or view it as a convenient graph! There are many interesting musical programs coming up in the 2017-18 season, including a program on Duke Ellington next month, and a fascinating looking series of concerts exploring Neitzsche’s relationship to music. Of special interest to the Foundation for Iberian Music are two items in the upcoming season: first, a performance of Los Elementos by Literes at the Teatro de la Zarzuela, which we announced previously, and a concert that will be held as a part of a program called Aula de (Re)estrenos. Cuarteto Breton will perform a recently discovered work by Tomás Bretón on February 21, 2018. This work, Quinteto in sol mayor, has a critical edition forthcoming through ICCMU in their instrumental music series, edited by guest researcher María Luisa Martínez and our director Antoni Pizà. The edition will be available for purchase in 2018.