Post by erik on Apr 30, 2022 21:11:54 GMT -5
This upcoming Wednesday is Cinco De Mayo, an important Mexican holiday that commemorates the victory of an outmanned Mexican army regiment over a supposedly superior occupying French military force at Puebla on May 5, 1862. In honor of the holiday, we look at one of Mexico's most important composers of the current time.
Arturo Marquez: DANZON NO. 2
How influential is America’s neighbor to the south on modern music in general, and even America’s music in particular? Aaron Copland, the “Dean of American Music”, took a bit of the Mexican influence in his huge 1936 symphonic poem “El Salon Mexico” and his three-movement 1971 suite “Three Latin American Sketches”. And then there’s the Mexican influence on many Hollywood western film scores, like Elmer Bernstein’s score for the 1960 classic The Magnificent Seven, and Jerry Fielding’s for director Sam Peckinpah’s 1969 epic The Wild Bunch. Much of that music is very influenced by indigenous influences and also the Mariachi music of urban areas like Mexico City and Durango. One of the most prominent exponents of Mexican classical music in our time has been Arturo Marquez. Born in 1950 in the state of Sonora, Marquez studied at the Mexican Music Conservatory from 1970 to 1975, studying piano and music theory, followed by compositional studies with Mexican composers like Federico Ibarra, Joaquin Gutierrez Heras, and Hector Quintana, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California in 1990. Much of Marquez’s music is based on Mexican salon influences, reflected in the series of nine “danzones” that he composed between 1994 and 2017. A hugely popular work is “Danzon No. 2”, which was composed in 1994, and commissioned by the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The work was premiered by that university’s orchestra under Francisco Savin, but it really took off in 2007, when Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel put it on the programme as part of their tour of Europe and the United States; it later was recorded for their album Fiesta, a hugely popular album of music of Latin America, along with the famous “Mambo” from Leonard Bernstein’s score of West Side Story.
Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela/GUSTAVO DUDAMEL (Deutsche Grammphon)
Included (Fiesta):
Revueltas: SENSEMAYA
Inocente Carreno: MARGARITENA
Antonio Estevez: MEDIODIA EN EL LLANO
Aldemaro Romero: SUITE PARA CUERDAS
Ginastera: ESTANCIA
Evencio Castellanods: SANTA CRUZ DE PACAIRIGUA
Leonard Bernstein: MAMBO/FROM “WEST SIDE STORY”
Arturo Marquez: DANZON NO. 2
How influential is America’s neighbor to the south on modern music in general, and even America’s music in particular? Aaron Copland, the “Dean of American Music”, took a bit of the Mexican influence in his huge 1936 symphonic poem “El Salon Mexico” and his three-movement 1971 suite “Three Latin American Sketches”. And then there’s the Mexican influence on many Hollywood western film scores, like Elmer Bernstein’s score for the 1960 classic The Magnificent Seven, and Jerry Fielding’s for director Sam Peckinpah’s 1969 epic The Wild Bunch. Much of that music is very influenced by indigenous influences and also the Mariachi music of urban areas like Mexico City and Durango. One of the most prominent exponents of Mexican classical music in our time has been Arturo Marquez. Born in 1950 in the state of Sonora, Marquez studied at the Mexican Music Conservatory from 1970 to 1975, studying piano and music theory, followed by compositional studies with Mexican composers like Federico Ibarra, Joaquin Gutierrez Heras, and Hector Quintana, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California in 1990. Much of Marquez’s music is based on Mexican salon influences, reflected in the series of nine “danzones” that he composed between 1994 and 2017. A hugely popular work is “Danzon No. 2”, which was composed in 1994, and commissioned by the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The work was premiered by that university’s orchestra under Francisco Savin, but it really took off in 2007, when Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel put it on the programme as part of their tour of Europe and the United States; it later was recorded for their album Fiesta, a hugely popular album of music of Latin America, along with the famous “Mambo” from Leonard Bernstein’s score of West Side Story.
Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela/GUSTAVO DUDAMEL (Deutsche Grammphon)
Included (Fiesta):
Revueltas: SENSEMAYA
Inocente Carreno: MARGARITENA
Antonio Estevez: MEDIODIA EN EL LLANO
Aldemaro Romero: SUITE PARA CUERDAS
Ginastera: ESTANCIA
Evencio Castellanods: SANTA CRUZ DE PACAIRIGUA
Leonard Bernstein: MAMBO/FROM “WEST SIDE STORY”