Tuesday, May 23 at 7 pm
Piffaro
Entre dos álamos
Piffaro, joined by a stellar vocal ensemble, makes its Music of the Americas debut with a program of Latin American 16th-century music.
The early music group celebrates the arrival of spring with a program of magnificent music from 16th and 17th century Peru, Bolivia, and Chile in "Entre dos Álamos," including sacred and secular music from cities, missions, and cathedrals. The title of the concert comes from Juan Blas de Castro's setting of a lyrical fragment from Lope de Vega's novel Las fortunas de Diana, in which the envious river Tagus tries to separate two lovers, just awakened by the inevitable arrival of the new season. This piece is included in the Codex Zuola, copied in Peru in the 17th century.
Piffaro (Priscilla Herreid, Grant Herreid, Greg Ingles, Jonatan Alvarado, and Erik Schmalz) will be joined by a stellar cast of guest singers and instrumentalists, including Nell Snaidas, Estelí Gomez, Jay Carter, Andrew Padgett, Daniel Swenberg, Danny Mallon, Héloïse Degrugillier, and Stephanie Corwin.
Admission: Free
This concert is part of GEMAS, a project of Americas Society and Gotham Early Music Scene devoted to early music of the Americas.
Wednesday, March 15, 7 pm ET
Ars Longa de La Habana
Gulumbá Gulumbé
The Cuban early music group returns with a program of Latin American Baroque music that explores resonances of Africa in the Americas.
Ars Longa returns to Music of the Americas with a concert that draws on their 2013 CD “Gulumbá Gulumbé. Resonancias de África en el Nuevo Mundo,” which highlights the African presence in Baroque music from the New World. The program, based on research by Guatemalan musicologist Omar Morales Abril, includes several villancicos negros, musical pieces intended primarily for Christmas, as well as poetry, recited by members of the ensemble.
Admission:
Free
Musicians:
Teresa Paz – soprano and director
Adriana Ruiz – mezzo soprano
Andrea Trueba – alto
Ariel Hernández Roque – tenor
Yunie Gainza – baritone
Daniel Bernaza Douglas – recorder
Oscar Cañizares – sackbut
Abrahan Castillo – bassoon
Beatriz López Paz – violin and viola da gamba
Arianna Ochoa Mesa – violin and viola da gamba
Aland López – guitar
David Pérez – keyboard
Ars Longa de La Habana, founded in Havana in 1994 by Teresa Paz and Aland López, is dedicated to the performance of Latin American and Cuban colonial music. Over the past 20 years, Ars Longa has performed regularly at the most prestigious music venues of the island and has given concerts and participated in international festivals in Spain, Italy, France, Sweden, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Venezuela, Mexico, and Ecuador. In addition to promoting the interpretation of early music in Cuba, Ars Longa hosts the annual international Esteban Salas Early Music Festival in Havana, which brings musicians and ensembles from around the world for concerts and masterclasses. The ensemble has released several CDs that have won recognition and prizes in Europe from Diapason, Le Monde de la Musique, Télérama, and Classica. They have performed on the GEMAS series twice in New York to packed houses.
Soprano Teresa Paz, Ars Longa's co-founder and director, holds a master's degree in Spanish music from the University of Valladolid in Spain and serves as the director of the concert venue at the Church of San Francisco of Paula in Havana, which regularly presents early music concerts. In 1994, she and Aland López formed the early music group Ars Longa, the first of its kind in Cuba. She is also the founder and director of the annual Esteban Salas Early Music Festival, which brings early music players from around the world. It serves as a meeting place in Cuba that through workshops and conferences assists the development of early music performance and interpretation. Teresa was the first to initiate academic plans to teach early music in Cuba. To put her informed historical interpretation into practice, she established the Baroque Orchestra of the Escuela Nacional de Música, Havana. She has attended workshops in early music singing and interpretation with such international specialists as Josep Cabré, Evelyn Tubb, and Claudio Abbado. Teresa has been honored internationally for her recording projects of unknown works by Cuban and other Latin American composers.
This concert is part of GEMAS, a project of Americas Society and Gotham Early Music Scene devoted to early music of the Americas, and is a co-presentation with Five Boroughs Music Festival.