Cervantino Fever 2014

As always, yesterday Guanajuato folks filled the main floor and first balcony of Teatro Juarez to be among the first to know this year's International Cervantino Festival program  And always, the speakers felt no need to hurry through their speeches. So here's a joke  I heard afterward:

Guanajuato hillscape behind , Japanese sun on both sides

"A good speech must be like a bikini, short, showing much but leaving something to the imagination." 

Waiting their turn

  Un buen discurso debe ser como un bikini, corto, enseñando mucho, pero dejando algo a la imaginacion.

Whoever made the exuberant video that followed   the speakers knew what what to do. It was short, showing much, but, yes, leaving parts uncovered.

The program is so full  the list that follows is almost like a Thanksgiving dinner described by the cranberries, but here goes:

The opener :Japanese taiko drummers

The closing: Ruben Blades (Panama by way of New York), known as the salsero intelectual.
:
In classical music, two performances by the Arditti Quartet (USA), seven by the Austrian pianist Rudolf Buchbinder playing all the Beethoven sonatas

Three nights of folklorico-the National Folklore Ballet of Amalia Hernandez, the: Nuevo Leon Dance Troupe; and the OSUG ballet folklorico + at least one night of ballet (from Bulgaria)

A concert version of West Side Story (Amor sin barreras)

Jazz and world music as always at the Ex-Hacienda Gabriel de Barrera

Movies, pantomime, acrobats, world class marionette shows

Guanajuato's own Capella Guanajuatense and Zephyrus

Spotlight on Shakespeare: somewhere between half a dozen and a dozen offerings of his plays during this 450th year from his birth, including a local project involving young people from four Guanajuato communities (El Proyecto Ruelas) alredy rehearsing scenes to present

At the Alhondiga, an African woman playing the kora

I'll stop here although I have probably skipped the event (possibly from Mexico) that will propel you to the box office (taquilla) tomorrow when tickets for individual events go on sale.

Despite this horn of plenty, people talk about what is not being done this year."What? only the Entremeses tis year when Cervantes was Shakespeare's contemporary?" (my translation)

A fraction of the audience pouring out of Teatro Juarez

On the other hand: much baroque music and music on Shakespearean themes, literary programs honoring the centennial of the nationally beloved poet Efrain Huerta born in Silao, and art exhibits including Guatemalan textiles and photos by Rodrigo Moya from an archive that has been closed for thirty years; and at the train station every night of the Festival, hip hop, vallenato and other dance music for young people. I always marvel at how the FIC offers something  for every age and taste.

Stay tuned for more on the nooks and crannies that make the Cervantino special.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

  

Cervantino 2012: Talking with Saul Bitran

What a treat for me to talk with the first violinist of an important string quartet, a group I have heard play many times. Expecially a musician about my size with a quiet but engaging manner.

Saul Bitrán, along with his brothers Saul and Alvaro and violist Javier Montiel, are in Guanajuato for two Cervantino concerts,last night a 30^th anniversary concert in the Auditorio de Minas and tonight, together with the Woodwind Quintet of Mexico City, a program of contemporary music, same hour and place.

So what did we talk about? About our families, migration and Shostakovich. We are both descended from Jewish emigrants who came to the Americas in the early 1900s. On his mother’s side he is descended from Russian Jews, on his father’s side he is a Sefardi, a Turkish Jew whose ancestors had gone there from Spain five centuries before, during the era also produced the voyages of Columbus. Both sides of his family went to   Chile, but they left years later in 1974 when the military junta took over. 

When I told him I had recently been in Turkey, that the younger Jews are leaving. Bitrán asked me where they were going..  I remembered meeting a forty-year old man at a ferryboat stop who said he was torn between staying in Turkey where he had a business or going to America. "Probably the U.S. and Israel," he nodded.

Before long, I had told the violinist about attending many Cuarteto Latinoamericano concerts, going to a Quartetto Italiano concert when I was eighteen (I listened to an LP record fourteen times; the group performed from memory) and recently reading Music for Silenced Voices about Shostakovich and his quartets. He said he had read reviews of the book, it was a good one, and asked how the author’s last name was spelled. He mused that we can see the development of Shostakovich and Villa-Lobos in their many quartets over the years. (Villa-Lobos is a Cuarteto favorite, on their program last night.)

Bitrán said he had lived in the United States for a number of years.“Where?”

“Boston.”

“That’s where I heard the Quartetto Italiano!”

Would I be coming to the evening’s concert?

“On Sunday, I’ll be at the Minas.”

He frowned a little, “The contemporary concert,” he said.

Sounded as if I would miss the Cuarteto's personal picks marking their anniversary. Such is the abundance of the Cervantino. 

Cervantino 2012: Riccardo Muti, Chicago Symphony Conductor

Riccardo Muti as Adept with the Press as on the Podium

Below, the Chicago Tribune photo announcing the CSO's Mexico Trip

When the Chicago Symphony, arguably one of the three finest symphony orchestras in the world, played Franck and Brahms in Teatro Juarez,  we Guanajuato folks in the elegant venue framing the musicians were as comfortably at home as if in our own salas. I was lucky to have a seat in the second box on the concertmaster’s side so could glimpse the conductor Riccardo Muti at work relaxed but alert. At times I even saw him change expression.

Even so for me Muti’s press conference was as exciting as the crisp, clear sound of the orchestra. First he explained how he had decided  to take the job in Chicago (“A beautiful city and I’m a Neapolitan!”) after the woman on his right in the photo, the President of the Symphony, followed him to many of his concerts, finally inviting him to consider the Chicago Symphony.

 

Responding to selected questions from reporters, Muti stated firmly that life without music would be barbaric. Asked how he develops his approach to a piece, he quotes Mozart’s comment that music is the space between the notes and a mentor’s advice, not to think too much, adding he studies each score carefully.

Muti believes the human body is adapted for tonal music, but that new composers should be heard. As for present audiences, he said that In Verdi’s time, a day or two after a new opera, people in the streets would be singing the tunes. He laments that our electronic means of hearing music may be dumbing us down.

At least some of the time, Muti would like to see the barriers between performers wearing formal garb and the audience dissolve.[This is just what happens when someone drops in on an OSUG rehearsal.] Muti is clearly proud of concerts he has led to promote peace in Sarajevo, Istanbul, Yerevan (Armenia). Without going into detail, he mentions yearly park concerts in the main Latino barrio in Chicago.

I’ve nearly forgotten to mention Muti’s ready sense of humor and ability to laugh at himself. Here's one example: “I’m glad I’m the age I am, with a whole crop of Chinese conductors on their way up.” Laughter, but Muti sees a woman with a startled expression: “What you’re Chinese?” Pause. “No of course not,” he says. “Mexican.” Laughter once again.

Cervantino Festival 2012 overview Tuesday, May 8

Note that the event, usually at the end of May has been moved up "because of the Mexican elections."
Place: Teatro Juarez at 6:45 but get there early as there is always a bumper crowd.

The invited countries this year are Austria, Switzerland and Poland, with Sinaloa (think Mazatlan) the invited Mexican state.

Festival dates: October 3 - 21. To know more, keep checking www.festivalcervantino.gob.mex.