Saints John And Therese Step Aside For Mictecacihuatl: Post-Classical Ensemble To Bring Two Concerts And Humanities Conference To 'Changing' Capital

The Mexican Odessey
Post-Classical Ensemble Thursday, November 6,
7:30 to 10:30 pm
The Harman Center for the Arts. Sydney Harman Hall
610 F Street NW
Washington, D.C. [Gallery Place Metro Station]

Pedro Carboné, piano
Roberto Limón, guitar
Georgetown University Chamber Singers
Gregorio Luke, commentator
Angel Gil-Ordóñez, conductor

Mexico’s explosive cultural saga — from stark Mayan ceremonies to the torrid revolutionary art of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo — produced centuries of explosive music. This unique program, combining music, history, and visual art, includes the Aztec intensities captured by Carlos Chavez, the florid reverence of Mexican Baroque, and the shrill trumpets and booming tubas remembered by Silvestre Revueltas from his rural childhood.

Pre-hispanic culture — Xochipili by Carlos Chávez (with pre-Hispanic instruments)

Mexican Baroque — Choral works by Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla

Romantic/Post-Romantic piano music by Ricardo Castro and Manuel Ponce

For solo guitar: Scherzino mexicano and Variations and Fugue on “La Folia” by Manuel Ponce

Nationalism: Three Pieces for solo guitar by Carlos Chavez; Homenaje a Federico Garcia Lorca by Silvestre Revueltas

High modernism: Three Secular Dances for cello and piano by Mario Lavista and Serenata* by Ana Lara
* East Coast premiere

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Additional Mexican programing Nov. 1 at Georgetown University: "Defining Mexico" — an all-day conference followed by a choral concert by Georgetown University Chamber Singers at 6:00 pm in McNeir Hall (New North Building). Free and open to the public.

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"The Mexican Odyssey," a festival including two concerts and a conference, will be presented Nov. 1 to 6, 2008, in Washington, D.C., by Post-Classical Ensemble in association with Georgetown University, with support from the Mexican Institute and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The centerpiece will be a three-hour Post-Classical Ensemble concert on Friday, Nov. 6, at 7:30 pm at the Harman Center for the Arts. Conceived by the Ensemble's Artistic Director, Joseph Horowitz, in collaboration with the Mexican cultural historian Gregorio Luke, and conducted by the Ensemble's Music Director, Angel Gil-Ordóñez, this multi-media presentation traces Mexico's cultural saga from stark Mayan ceremonies to the torrid revolutionary art of Diego Rivera and Silvestre Revueltas.

Combining music, history, and visual art, the concert moves from Aztec intensities, captured by Carlos Chavez, to the florid reverence of Mexican Baroque, to the shrill trumpets and booming tubas recollected by Revueltas from his rural childhood. The participants include the Mexican composers Mario Lavista and Ana Lara, the Mexican guitarist Roberto Limon, the Spanish pianist Pedro Carbone, and the Georgetown University Chamber Singers.

"The Mexican Odyssey is the first fruit of a new Educational Partnership between Post-Classical Ensemble and Georgetown University," comments Joseph Horowitz. "It links with the Ensemble's ongoing advocacy of Mexican music, which has included last season's conference on Revueltas and Chavez at the Library of Congress, and our presentation of the Mexican classic film Redes with Revueltas's score in live performance. We've also given a full program of the music of Mario Lavista. "We feel a sense of mission to share with American audiences the astonishing musical legacy of Mexico, a legacy we in the US know little about.

Mexico's musical odyssey began centuries earlier than American classical music. It produced important Baroque composers, important Romantic composers, and, in Manuel Ponce, a transitional figure bridging Romantics and Moderns who deserves to be considered one of the important composers produced this side of the Atlantic. Mexico also boasts a vital and thriving contemporary music culture, in which Mario Lavista and Ana Lara figure prominently."

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Header image credit: Mictecacihuatl by Tlisza Jaurique. © 2008 Jaurique and Zilliox. Copyright controlled. With thanks.

Tlisza Jaurique's personal statement:

"My multimedia work seeks to reconstruct and recontextualize the imagery/language of my Mexican/Yaqui/Basque/Xicana heritage. What is valuable to culture needs to be re-interpreted for the present age. My work is informed by Western linear art traditions, and also propelled by my own native, cyclical traditions of the re-incarnations of our sacred imagery."