Tapas
Saturday 19 November 2011
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Fortitude Valley
A musical journey of fiery passion, abounding joy and intimate beauty with choral music from Spain & Latin America
This program featured music of Spain and Latin America, a genre which is seldom performed by Australian choirs. While wanting to represent the enormous diversity of choral music from the region, with such a wealth of repertoire to choose from, it became clear that in a short concert we could only hope to offer a tiny taste of any single composer, country or period. So we presented Tapas, a musical 'tasting plate' that took the audience on a journey of fiery passion, abounding joy and intimate beauty.
We began our program in the Old World, a distinction marked by the European colonisation of South America at the end of the 15th century. The first half of the concert featured music by composers who were all born in Spain or Portugal, two of whom moved during their lifetimes to write music in the New World. Gaspar Fernandes, born in Portugal, is thought to be the same Fernández who emerged thirty years later in the cathedrals of Guatemala and what is present-day Mexico. Padilla was born in Spain but moved to Puebla, Mexico in 1620. Most of these composers would have been well known in their time but most, with the possible exception of Guerrero and Padilla, have now largely faded into obscurity in choral circles.
We then jumped forward a few hundred years to bring you music by the Cuban composer Gavilán, whose Mi Cancion sets text by a 20th century Bengali poet. Argentinian-Australian composer Gerardo Dirié has also drawn on a myriad of sources of inspiration for his triptych Pomegranate Friends. The text, while Dirié's own, is inspired by the writings of a 16th century Italian Jesuit scholar who spent almost thirty years in China, and translated a series of aphorisms from the original Mandarin about the values and virtues of
friendship. While the first two movements have been performed by Fusion before, this was the premiere performance of the third movement Stratagem, and the work in its entirety. We concluded with music by Carlos Guastavino and Atahualpa Yupanqui, two of the most prominent musical names in 20th century South America.
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Fortitude Valley
A musical journey of fiery passion, abounding joy and intimate beauty with choral music from Spain & Latin America
This program featured music of Spain and Latin America, a genre which is seldom performed by Australian choirs. While wanting to represent the enormous diversity of choral music from the region, with such a wealth of repertoire to choose from, it became clear that in a short concert we could only hope to offer a tiny taste of any single composer, country or period. So we presented Tapas, a musical 'tasting plate' that took the audience on a journey of fiery passion, abounding joy and intimate beauty.
We began our program in the Old World, a distinction marked by the European colonisation of South America at the end of the 15th century. The first half of the concert featured music by composers who were all born in Spain or Portugal, two of whom moved during their lifetimes to write music in the New World. Gaspar Fernandes, born in Portugal, is thought to be the same Fernández who emerged thirty years later in the cathedrals of Guatemala and what is present-day Mexico. Padilla was born in Spain but moved to Puebla, Mexico in 1620. Most of these composers would have been well known in their time but most, with the possible exception of Guerrero and Padilla, have now largely faded into obscurity in choral circles.
We then jumped forward a few hundred years to bring you music by the Cuban composer Gavilán, whose Mi Cancion sets text by a 20th century Bengali poet. Argentinian-Australian composer Gerardo Dirié has also drawn on a myriad of sources of inspiration for his triptych Pomegranate Friends. The text, while Dirié's own, is inspired by the writings of a 16th century Italian Jesuit scholar who spent almost thirty years in China, and translated a series of aphorisms from the original Mandarin about the values and virtues of
friendship. While the first two movements have been performed by Fusion before, this was the premiere performance of the third movement Stratagem, and the work in its entirety. We concluded with music by Carlos Guastavino and Atahualpa Yupanqui, two of the most prominent musical names in 20th century South America.
