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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.

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).

Stage rendering courtesy of the NYCO.

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.

Literes’s “Los Elementos” in the New Yorker

We announced last week that the New York City Opera will soon give the NYC premiere of Spanish composer Antonio Literes’s opera Los Elementos, in an original production for which our director Antoni Pizà served as an adviser, in addition to writing program notes. The May 8th issue of The New Yorker has some interesting coverage of the opera, in “The Intriguing Return of Baroque Opera.” In this article, Russell Platt gives some background of Literes, “whom Handel could have claimed as a colleague,” and a few of the interesting aspects of the opera, such as its all female cast (following baroque Spanish custom).

The opera opens May 4th at Harlem Stage Gatehouse, through May 7th. Don’t miss this chance to see some little-performed opera! Tickets begin at $25.

Free “Redes” Screening and Concert Thursday

As we previously announced, the Americas Society is holding the NY premiere screening of the lost Mexican film Redes (1937), May 4th at 7 pm. It is free to the public, but you must register, as space is limited.

The screening will include two special treats: first, the Foundation for Iberian Music’s resident Perspectives Ensemble will perform two works by Revueltas (who composed the Redes score); and second, a panel discussion with Joseph Horowitz (PostClassical Ensemble, executive director) and Angel Gil-Ordóñez (principal guest conductor of Perspectives Ensemble), moderated by Carlos Gutierrez of Cinema Tropical.

For full program information and to register, please visit the Americas Society’s event page.

CFP: “En ocasión de María del Carmen: Enrique Granados y su época” (Murcia, Spain)

The University of Murcia is hosting a conference October 18-20, 2017, entitled “En ocasión de María del Carmen: Enrique Granados y su época.” The Foundation for Iberian Music is delighted to participate in this conference; our own Antoni Pizà is a member of the organizing committee.

Please click here to view the full CFP. (The CFP will soon be available in English.) Proposals will be accepted until September 15. Please submit proposals to enrique.encabo@um.es.