Angel Gil-Ordóñez in the Washington Post Angel Gil-Ordóñez was featured recently in both The Washington Post‘s daily and its magazine. Gil-Ordóñez is a long-time collaborator with the Foundation for Iberian Music, through his work as director of our resident Perspectives Ensemble. When not in NYC with Perspectives, Gil-Ordóñez works in Washington DC with the PostClassical Ensemble, which he directs and co-founded. Both ensembles have received numerous accolades. The May 25th edition of WaPo’s online magazine published an interview with Gil-Ordóñez, entitled, “What makes a good conductor? Harmony — and ‘authority through knowledge.’” In it, Gil-Ordóñez discusses some of his training and experience as a conductor. He was also featured in a June 29th article on activism in the arts, “Why artists become activists: it’s not only the election.” The article showcases numerous artists around the country and the ways in which they have used their art as activism. Gil-Ordóñez discusses PostClassical ensemble’s musical diplomacy, with the group’s executive director, Joe Horowitz.
Fundacion Juan March Live Stream, Sep 19 September 19th, Fundación Juan March Madrid will unveil its new season of events. This presentation will be live streamed on the Fundación website at 12 pm (Madrid time). One of the new events to be announced is the premiere of a re-discovered musical work by Tomás Bretón (Salamanca, 29 December 1850–Madrid, 2 December 1923), the Quinteto en sol mayor. It will be performed by Cuarteto Breton at Fundación March Madrid on February 21, 2018. The critical edition of this magnificent chamber piece is by María Luisa Martínez, a researcher at the Foundation for Iberian Music, and Antoni Pizà, the Foundation director.
Review of “La música invisible” in Madrid’s ABC Antoni Pizà has a new book review in Madrid’s nationally distributed newspaper, ABC. In the June 23 , issue, he gives a glowing review of La música invisible (Fórcola, 2017), by musicologist and ABC contributor, Stefano Russomanno. Subtitled “en busca de la armonía de las esferas,” La música invisible investigates 20 milestones in music history that exemplify Pythagoras’s music of the spheres, the invisible music that governs the universe. In his praise for the book, Pizà writes that Russomanno is “without pedantry” and writes “with elegance.” Read the full review here. You can get the book directly from Fórcola for €19,50 here. North American customers may also purchase it through Amazon.com. Want a preview? Read the foreword to La música invisible here!
Pollença Festival, August 2017 Mallorca’s Pollença Festival will soon begin is 56th year! The festival occurs each August in the town of Pollença and features a wide variety of classical performances at the beautiful cloister of the Convent of Santo Domingo. This international festival features symphonies, chamber ensembles, and early music consorts throughout the month of August. The Foundation for Iberian Music’s director, Antoni Pizà, has written program notes for many of this year’s concerts. You can view the program and purchase tickets at the festival website. Tickets range from 20-35 euros. (Photo credit: Festival Pollença)
Music Featured in 1935 Jazz Lecture In 1935, Spanish composer and musicologist Baltasar Samper presented a series of groundbreaking lectures on jazz at l’Ateneu Polytechnicum de Barcelona and Discòfils at Associacio Pro-Música. Antoni Pizà is preparing a print edition of these lectures from Samper’s own notes. As a teaser, we have prepared a YouTube playlist of all of the recordings referenced in Samper’s talks. Jazz recording began in 1917, but it did not become widespread until the late ’20s and early ’30s. The Hot Club of France was founded in 1931 and immediately helped to introduce a European audience to these North American records. The Hot Club of Barcelona was founded in 1935 and smaller local clubs spread throughout surrounding towns, in spite of the nascent Franco regime’s view that jazz was dangerous. You can learn a little more about the spread of jazz and blues through Catalonia in Jazz and Totalitarianism, ed. Bruce Johnson.
Experimental Flamenco At La Nacional in June K. Meira Goldberg, flamencologist at the Foundation for Iberian Music and director of our “Spaniards, Natives, Africans, and Gypsies” conference series, will be performing Sundays in June at La Nacional! With her director Rafael Abolafia (researcher at the Graduate Center’s Segal Theater) and fellow dancer/guitarist José Moreno, she has created an experimental flamenco work called Raíz. Raíz seeks to create a ceremony of perforation and immersion in the rites of flamenco. The piece is fractal in its conception, jagged in its edges. It emerges from the poetic and transgressive realism of arte povera: a return to simple objects and messages, a stage where traces of nature and industry become alive. The Crone embodies the strength of instability. She enacts rejection and rebellion, memory and faith, feasting and solitude. Her pilgrimage maps a homeland containing many forces in tension. We wish to generate a contemporary quejío, to open spaces and sensations where our wings may find ground and our roots take flight. Raíz will have four performances, beginning June 4. Tickets are $20 and available through Eventbrite.
“The Soul of the Spanish Violin” Release and Residency Recent Graduate Center graduate Eva León is celebrating the release of her album The Soul of the Spanish Violin (Naxos) this Wednesday at National Sawdust in Williamsburg. León completed her Doctor of Music with a dissertation on Joaquín Rodrigo, advised by Antoni Pizà. Her new album is all works by Rodrigo, performed with pianist Olga Vinokur, who is also joining León for the release concert. León and her chamber ensemble will be joining the resident ensembles of the Foundation for Iberian Music in Fall 2017, and will be performing with our other acclaimed residents, Perspectives Ensemble and New York Andalus Ensemble. Tickets are $29 ($34 at door). National Sawdust is a non-profit venue whose programming is guided by local artists. It offers several educational initiatives and a non-profit recording studio.
María del Carmen Conference Website We previously announced a new conference upcoming at the University of Murcia (Spain), celebrating Granados and his opera María del Carmen. This conference now has a website, so please bookmark it for future updates. An English version of the site is forthcoming. Paper proposals are being accepted through September 15, 2017.
Recordings from Benet Casablancas’s Birthday Concert Our frequent collaborator, composer Benet Casablancas, recently celebrated his 60th birthday in his hometown of Sabadell, as we previously posted. Casablancas has composed and premiered several new works with the Foundation for Iberian Music and Perspectives Ensemble, and he received a monographic spotlight from the Columbia University’s Miller Theater in 2010. Casablancas has shared with us two recordings from one of the anniversary concerts, on March 3rd, 2017. Please enjoy these solo piano works, performed by the superb David Casanova. Impromptu (2009) Epigramas Cervantinos (2016)
“Los Elementos” Makes NYT Best-of List The New York City Opera’s run of Los Elementos, a little-performed Spanish opera by Antonio Literes, was highlighted by the New York Times last week (following a mention in the New Yorker). The production was reviewed in Friday’s paper, following its opening Thursday night. The review’s title, “Is ‘Los Elementos’ Opera? That’s Beside the Point,” draws on a question raised in Antoni Pizà’s notes for the program. Los Elementos is a short work which some argue is a form of cantata called serenata, in spite of Literes calling it “opera” in his own title. The point is irrelevant as far as the audience is concerned, the review argues, as no matter the form, Los Elementos is “a musical delight and a charming entertainment” that offers some Spanish sabor. In addition to a glowing review, it was selected for the weekly “That Decisive Moment” column, which highlights the “8 best classical music moments” of the week. All in all, another encouraging entry into NYCO’s “Ópera en Español” series which bodes well for the future of Spanish opera in New York. Photo: Stage rendering courtesy of the NYCO.