Literes in the Americas The Museum of Music of Barcelona recently held a concert featuring Spanish music from the Americas, which included a performance of a rare Literes cantata. The cantata, Cantada al Infantisimo, was found at Antigua Guatemala Cathedral and transcribed by Anna Cazurra and Antoni Pizà. The concert was directed by Marta Alamajano, a baroque soprano who herself is known for her interpretations of Literes. The entire program was comprised of baroque music, including works by Durón, Sumaya and Salazar. You can view the full program and notes here (PDF). And don’t forget, next month the Teatre Principal of Palma de Mallorca will be performing the new production of Literes’ Los Elementos, for which Antoni Pizà served as a consultant. Pizà will also be giving a pre-concert lecture at the Caixa Forum, by the theater. Click the link above for full details.
Rodrigo Discussion Panel at Harvard Friends in the Boston area, we have added a discussion panel at Harvard to our Joaquín Rodrigo Festival calendar! The panel will be April 11 at the Harvard Instituto Cervantes, at 5:30 pm. It follow the same format as the one upcoming April 9 at the King Juan Carlos I Center at NYU, on Rodrigo’s life and works. Both panels will include Walter A. Clark, Antoni Pizà, Douglas Riva, and Javier Suárez-Pajares, moderated by our festival director, Isabel Pérez Dobarro. Mezzo-soprano Anna Tonna will perform with guitarist Hermelindo Ruiz. (The NYU panel will feature Graduate Center guitarist Federico Díaz.) Read the event announcement (español and English) here. 5:30 pm April 11 4th Floor, 2 Arrow St. Cervantes Observatorio, Harvard University Cambridge, MA Or join us in NYC April 9!
2019 Medieval Music Performance Course in Besalú The Foundation for Iberian Music is once again providing support to the Medieval Music Besalú program, which is now in its 8th year! MMB is a festival and workshop series in the medieval town of Besalú, Spain. This year’s theme is Musica Instrumentalis, although they are offering several exciting vocal performance courses as well. They offer rare opportunities to study medieval performance, manuscript studies, and instrument making with some of the finest people in early music, all in a quaint medieval setting. And we’re not even getting paid to say that! We’re just big fans of the program. One of this year’s special programs is a three day workshop in Troubadour manuscript G with Benjamin Bagby, director of the acclaimed ensemble Sequentia. The course is open to experienced singers and instrumentalists. There is also a course in “The Art of the Medieval Cantor” for experienced vocalists, with Katarina Livljanić, a chant specialist and director of the vocal ensemble Dialogos. Other courses in vocal and instrumental music are available to beginners and non-musicians. Register at the festival website.
Forthcoming Book on Samper’s Jazz Lectures Last year, we put together a playlist of jazz songs represented in a 1935 lecture series on jazz given by composer Baltasar Samper. It wasn’t just for the love of jazz. The playlist accompanies a new edition of Samper’s lectures prepared by Antoni Pizà and Francesc Vicens, forthcoming from Lleonard Muntaner. Jazz had only recently arrived in Europe, spreading quickly after the original Hot Club opened in France in 1931. Música de jazz transcribes the full text of Samper’s lectures (in the original Catalan), from his own notes, with new essays by Pizà and Vicens. From the cover: “Samper is revealed in this text as an artist of tireless curiosity for culture in general and especially for technology and artistic and social innovations such as jazz or cinema.” Música de jazz will be available to purchase later this month. (The cover photo, taken by Charles Peterson, features Artie Shapiro, Joe Marsala, Oran “Hot Lips” Page, and Coleman Hawkins playing in NYC in 1939.)
Rodrigo’s Piano Music, April 4 We are delighted to announce the details of the next concert in our Joaquin Rodrigo: The Guitar and Beyond chamber music series, co-sponsored by the Hispanic Society. The April 4 concert will feature music for piano, performed by Douglas Riva and Isabel Pérez Dobarro, including Cuatro piezas (4 Pieces), A l’ombre de Torre Bermeja (In the Shadow of the Torre Bermeja), Juglares (for four hands), the ironic Gran marcha de los subsecretarios (Grand March of the Under-Secretaries), and more. There will be a pre-concert lecture with the performers, Douglas Riva and Isabel Pérez Dobarro, plus Cecilia Rodrigo, daughter of the composer, and her daughter, Patricia León Rodrigo. You can read the text of the lecture here. You can also view the full program with notes here. Admission is free but RSVP is required. You may RSVP by visiting the Hispanic Society’s event page or by emailing events@hispanicsociety.org. 4 April 2019 Lecture: 6:30 pm Concert: 7:00 pm American Academy of Arts & Letters 632 West 156 Street New York You can view the program and pre-concert lecture for the first concert in the series here. The third and final concert will be May 2.
Rodrigo Panel at KJCC: Date Clarification In just over a month, we will be having a panel discussion on the life and works of Joaquín Rodrigo at NYU’s King Juan Carlos I Center. (See the announcement for full details and participants.) There has been a time and date change since the event was first announced and we would like to clarify any potential confusion. The panel will be held on 9 April, 2019, at 7:00 pm in the main auditorium. Attendance is free; no RSVP required.
Two World Premieres A. Boffil Only a month and a half into 2019, two composers who previously received commissions from the Foundation for Iberian Music have already had world premieres: Benet Casablancas with his first opera, L’enigma di Lea, and Miguel A. Roig-Francolí with a symphony, De profundis, which is based on a chant from the Liber usualis. Congratulations to these two great composers. De profundis was performed by the Symphony Orchestra of the Balearic Islands, conducted by Álvaro Albiach, at Auditorium of Palma de Mallorca (Spain) on 24 January 2019. You can view the entire performance on Roig-Francolí’s YouTube channel: L’enigma de Lea opened at Teatre del Liceu of Barcelona on 9 February 2019, conducted by Josep Pons, with a libretto by Rafael Argullol. It has been receiving rave reviews. The Liceu Opera has a couple of short preview videos, one here, the other below:
Los Elementos comes to Palma de Mallorca Last year, the Teatro de la Zarzuela and Fundación Juan March premeired a new production of Liters’ opera Los Elementos. This production is coming to the Teatre Principal of Palma de Mallorca in May. It will have two performances, May 17 and 18. Tickets range from 8 to 35 euros. Click here for tickets and production information. Antoni Pizà, author of Antoni Literes: Introducció a la seva obra, will give a free pre-concert lecture at the Caixa Forum, across the street from the Teatre Principal. As you might recall, Los Elementos also had a new production by the New York City Opera last year, which Foundation for Iberian Music director Antoni Pizà advised. (Pizà is the author of Antoni Literes: Introducció a la seva obraI, the only monograph on Literes.) Until its recent revival, Los Elementos had rarely been performed, and never before in NYC. Fans of baroque opera won’t want to miss this chance to see a little known work by a Spanish master!
Introducing Our 2019 Guest Researchers The Foundation for Iberian Music is delighted to welcome two new visiting researchers for the 2019, Nuria Blanco Álvarez and Isaac Diego García. Nuria holds a PhD in musicology from the University of Olviedo and specializes in 19th century zarzuela (Spanish musical theater). Her primary research interests are the music of composer Manuel Fernández Caballero (1835-1906) and the relationship of zarzuela to silent films. She writes for Codalario and Scherzo magazines, and her scholarly publications include “El dúo de La africana: Un hito en la historia de la zarzuela”, “Bribonas estropajosas”, “El compositor Manuel Fernández Caballero (1835-1906)”, “Cervantes en la música de Caballero”, “Los últimos días del gran Caballero”, “Chateaux Margaux y La viejecita, dos joyas en la Zarzuela”, “Peña y Goñi versus Caballero. Una polémica en la prensa: La marsellesa (1876)” and “De Julio Verne a Miguel Ramos Carrión: Los sobrinos del capitán Grant (1877)”. Isaac is a musicologist, composer, sound artist, performer, singer, and a professor at Universidad Internacional de la Rioja in Madrid. He is a member of Spain’s Association for Electro-acoustic Music (AMEE), which the Foundation for Iberian Music has collaborated with several times in recent years to present sound-art performances and symposiums in NYC. With AMEE’s Ferrer-Molina and Miguel Álvarez-Fernández, Isaac co-authored a report on the history and status of sound art and experimental music in Spain for Harvard’s Observatory of the Spanish Language and Hispanic Cultures in the US. Since 2008 Isaac Diego has been the artistic director and conductor of Proyecto 23, a vocal group dedicated to experimental music and intermedia art. He is also the founder and conductor of Ars Vocem, an early music ensemble.