Previous Section
Performing Arts Series: Sones de México Ensemble plays a festive fiestaPrint OptionsMore InformationRelated Information |
Performing Arts Series: Sones de México Ensemble plays a festive fiesta
Johnson County Community College
|
|
|
8/25/09
Story by Peggy Graham
Sones de México Ensemble plays a festive fiesta
Sones de México Ensemble, Chicago’s premier Mexican folk music group, opens the Performing Arts Series at Johnson County Community College with a joyous performance of music and dance at 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 25, in Yardley Hall of the Carlsen Center, JCCC.
Members of the Ensemble will introduce Mexico’s regional folk instruments and style at 7:15 p.m. in a free preconcert lecture/demonstration.
In the atmosphere of a traditional fandango (dance fiesta), Sones de México Ensemble entertains audiences with a collection of more than 70 acoustic instruments, bright four-part vocal arrangements and acrobatic dance. NPR calls a Sones de México presentation “a sight to behold” with the group’s magnitude of instruments and showmanship. Audiences are easily moved to dance and can do so during a segment of this performance.
Since its formation in 1994, Sones de México is known for preserving a tradition of folk songs collectively known as “son” from Mexico’s diverse cultural regions, performing them with a preservationist's care on more than 25 folk string, percussion and wind instruments. They are a unique ensemble of seasoned folk musicians, and a leader in Mexican music education.
“Son” is a term used to define a large family of regional music and dance styles. Each region of México has its own brand of “son” – guston, son jarocho, son huasteco, etc. – each with its own repertoire, instruments and style of singing and dancing. Sones de México’s cross-cultural view of music links “son” to the diverse ethnic roots of Mexico’s mestizo culture: Native American, Spanish and the often-overlooked influence of black music in Mexico.
As performers and recording artists, the ensemble has developed and popularized many original arrangements of Mexican traditional tunes while combining them with symphonic, Irish, folk, country and western, jazz and rock music.
Their 2007 album Esta Tierra es Tuya (This Land Is Your Land), which received both Grammy and Latin Grammy nominations, shows off their musical range from traditional Mexican to Bach, Led Zeppelin to Woody Guthrie.
The band is composed of director Víctor Pichardo (violin, clarinet, jarana, guitar, huapanguera), an award-winning musician, arranger, composer and educator; producer, ethnomusicologist Juan Díes (guitarrón, guitar); award-winning dancer and musician Lorena Iñiguez (dance, vihuela, jarana and small percussion); master violinist Juan Rivera (violin, requinto, jarana); multiinstrumentalist Zacbé Pichardo (marimba, harp, vihuela, percussion); and master drummer Javier Saume (drums, maracas, percussion).
Sones de México Ensemble tickets are $25 and $15, available by calling the Performing Arts Series box office at 913-469-4445 or online at www.jccc.edu/TheSeries.
Performing Arts Education presents a Sones de México school show at noon Sept. 25 in Yardley Hall. Tickets are $5, available at the box office, 913-469-4445. Educational outreach to schools is also available. Students can learn La Danza del Sol (Dance of the Sun), The Mexican Corrido (a lesson in folk literature for middle school students and older) or Animals in Mexican Folk Music (a lesson in history and anthropology). For more information, call 913-469-8500, ext. 4221.
This presentation is supported by Mid-America Arts Alliance with generous underwriting by the National Endowment for the Arts, Kansas Arts Commission, foundations, corporations and individuals throughout Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas.
###
