Symphony Shows

Latin Nights, Sal Ferreras and his Latin Jazz Sextet

Program notes by Sal Ferreras

Puerto Rican sociologist Angel Quintero Rivera once suggested that Latin America’s greatest contribution to the world was joy. He was clearly referring to the joy that we experience through the many musical styles, traditions and dances found across Central and South America and the Caribbean. These are the sounds we delight in bringing to you this evening.

Sones de Mariachi

(México)  

Blas Galindo

Blas Galindo  (1910-1993)

Mexican composer Galindo was an early pioneer who adopted diverse national folkloric music and dance styles to the formal and long-standing classical-music-type composition genre that has been a fixture of Mexican national music starting late in the 16^th century. Born in the city of San Gabriel, in the state of Jalisco, Blas Galindo enjoyed both formal studies and professional association with notable Mexican composers such as Carlos Chávez, Candelario Huizar and Jose Rolón as well as American Aaron Copland while attending the Berkshire Music Center in 1941-1942. After serving as a professor of composition at the National Conservatory from 1942-1947, he became Director of the National Institute of Fine Arts, a role he continued until 1961. Over his illustrious career he earned accolades and recognition from major cultural organizations in Mexico, Venezuela and the Municipality of Los Angeles, California.

His works broadened the popularity of regional musical styles that thrived outside the mainstream of national musical practice. The Sones de Mariachi, an early orchestral work of Blas Galindo, is a compilation of different forms of “sones”, these being folkloric settings of songs and rhythms with distinct regional characteristics or instrumentation. Mexico’s best internationally known musical genre, the Mariachi, is grounded in unique variants of sones originating in the central and western states of Mexico.

The long history of Mexican musical development contains a wide gamut of musical expressions that include a variety of Indigenous musics, hybrid styles, cross cultural fusion and urban styles that retain and reflect strong links with its rich and often turbulent history.  Mexico has had a profound influence on world popular music since the mid 19^th century as evident in a considerable number of internationally known songs such as Sobre Las Olas, Cielito Lindo, Jarabe Tapatío, La Bamba, and many others. Interesting fact: North American audiences first came to know authentic versions of Mexico’s regional music as early as the Chicago World Exposition of 1893.

Galhofeira Op. 13 No. 4

(Brazil)

Alberto Nepomuceno

Alberto Nepomuceno (1864-1920)  

Born in the city of Fortaleza, in the state of Ceará on the northeastern Brazilian coast, Alberto Nepomuceno developed a keen interest in the establishment of a Brazilian nationalist music at the urging of Norwegian composer Edward Grieg. While living and studying in Europe he married Norwegian pianist Walborg Bang, a former student of Edward Grieg. Encouraged by his later friendship with Grieg, Nepomuceno pursued a more national-based music composition career. He taught at the National Institute of Music in Rio de Janeiro where his determination to foster a national classical music tradition as a pianist and as a composer was a strong influence on that even more prominent musical nationalist of Brazil, his former student, Heitor Villa-Lobos.

Nepomuceno strongly believed in the importance of supporting and reflecting an authentic Brazilian-bred music. He wrote Galhofeira (meaning “playful or frolicsome”) as part of his Quatro Pećas Líricas (Four Lyric Pieces) in 1894. The driving rhythmic momentum of the composition reflects a work based on the street music of Rio de Janeiro.

Joropo

(Venezuela)

Moisés Moleiro

Moisés Moleiro   (1904-1979)   

Moisés Moleiro, a notable Venezuelan pianist and composer was born in 1904 in the town of Zaraza, in the state of Guárico. He was the founder of the Orfeón Lamas and taught at the original Escuela de Música José Angel Lamas in the capital city, Caracas. His classical and folkloric-influenced music compositions have achieved considerable popularity and have been performed across Latin America, Europe, and the United States. Having grown up in the Venezuelan southeastern plains, home to a unique folkloric tradition, he reflected that tradition in his body of work. Moleiro’s composition, Joropo, is based on the popular genre of the same name, the joropo, of the plains tradition, a music originally performed on cuatro, a four-string instrument, Venezuelan harp, maracas, and singer.

Desvairada

(Brazil)

Aníbal Augusto Sardinha (Garoto)

Aníbal Augusto Sardinha (Garoto)  (1915-1955)

The son of Portuguese immigrant, composer Aníbal Augusto Sardinha was a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and arranger. He is one of the best-known Brazilian violinists of all time and was an important influence on popular national musicians such as Carlos Lyra, João Gilberto and Baden Powell. He performed with the Trio Surdina and recorded with artists such as Carmen Miranda, Dorival Caymmi and Ary Barroso (composer of the world-famous song “Brazil”). After a stint in the USA in the 1940s with the famous band Bando da Lua (Carmen Miranda’s accompanying band) he gained even more notoriety in the early 1950s as a composer, including winning a competition to compose a major work to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the founding of the city of São Paolo. Desvairada, tonight’s work, means crazy in Portuguese. Apt title.

Concierto para Quinteto

(Argentina)  

Astor Piazzolla

Astor Piazzolla  (1921-1992)

Piazzolla is one of the most successful and influential composers of the twentieth century. Born in Mar de Plata, Argentina he began his deep connection with Argentinian Tango and his chosen instrument, the bandoneon, as a late teenager. He joined the iconic band of Aníbal Troilo, perhaps the best-known ensemble of the golden age of the tango, in 1938.

Piazzolla’s musical talents were recognized by influential musicians, including pianist Arthur Rubenstein, who encouraged him to further his studies. He studied with Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera who immersed him in the music and orchestration of composers like Stravinsky, Bartok, and Ravel. Being an innovative bandoneonist he eventually parted ways with the traditional tango orchestras and formed several successive and successful ensembles with which he honed his eclectic musical talent. During his Paris studies with Nadia Boulanger, and somewhat fed up with the more conservative tango tradition, he was encouraged by her to revisit his musical roots and explore a wider compositional palette within a more personal tango genre. This was a transformative moment in his illustrious career. During his stay in Paris, he attended a performance by jazz artist Gerry Mulligan that proved inspirational to his next musical adventure. He returned to Argentina and with a new ensemble developed what came to be known as the Nuevo Tango, a style of small-ensemble tango without a lead singer and featuring some jazz improvisation, a move that was seen as controversial within the traditional Tango arena. His next break came when he was invited by Curci-Pagani Music in Italy to sign a 15-year contract to record whatever he wished. This led to outstanding releases and collaborations with Gerry Mulligan and Pino Presti, among others.

Piazzolla formed his second and most influential quintet in 1978 with which he toured globally and produced some of his best-known recordings. In 1995 he was posthumously awarded the Konex Award, recognizing him as Argentina’s most important musician of the decade.

Dances from the Ballet Estancia

(Argentina)

Alberto Ginastera

Alberto Ginastera  (1916-1983)

Alberto Ginastera was born in Buenos Aires and went on to become a leading composer of Latin American music in the twentieth century. Although his early works were influenced by folkloric and traditional musics of his country, Ginastera’s 20^th century compositional style was more rooted in modernism and experimental music. His most significant works in this modern genre include his chamber opera Bomarzo (1967), commissioned by the Library of Congress, his Piano Concerto and Cantata para América Mágica and his opera Don Rodrigo.

Tonight’s featured Ginastera work is the Dances for the Ballet Estancia, written both as an orchestral suite (1943 version) and as a one-act ballet (1952 version). The six movements are evocative of the gaucho (Argentine equivalent of the North American cowboy) culture of the plains of Argentina. The movements evoke the daily rhythm of the farm workers.

The farm hands

The dance of the wheat

The afternoon break

The cattle men

The idyll

The malambo, or gaucho dance

Intermission

Latin Jazz Sextet feature set

O Bom Filho Torna a Casa

(Brazil)  

Bonfiglio de Oliveira

(featuring the Orchestra trombone section)

Bonfiglio de Oliveira  (1894-1940)

Bonfiglio de Oliveira, born in Rio de Janeiro in 1894 was a composer and trumpet player well known in Brazilian musical circles for his compositions in the choros, marchas and valsa styles.

Having had an early start to his musical studies he settled in Rio de Janeiro as part of the house band of the Cinema Ouvidor and frequented choro clubs where he met and played with all the outstanding figures of this beloved Brazilian musical tradition including one of its most beloved exponents, Pixinguinha (Alfredo da Rocha Viana Filho).

In 1922 he joined forces with Pixinguinha to form the ensemble Oito Batutas with which he toured Brazil and Argentina. He toured extensively with various ensembles throughout Italy, France, and Spain where he gained considerable notoriety as a trumpet player. He leaves behind a long legacy of wonderful compositions that have been performed and recorded by outstanding Brazilian artists. In 1979 Rio’s Museum of Images and Sounds released a recording of his most well-known works and in 2002 the record label Revivendo released a compilation of his most successful recordings. The title of this work, O Bom Filho Torna a Casa, translates to “The good son returns home”.

Gandinga, Mondongo y Sandunga

(Cuba)

Frank Emilio Flynn

Frank Emilio Flynn (1921-2001)

Francisco Emilio Flynn Rodríguez was born in Havana on April 13, 1921 to a Cuban mother and an American father.^[1] After losing his sight at a young age he developed a keen interest in the piano. At the age of 13 he won a local music contest which was to launch his significant career in music. He took a break from music activities to attend a school run by the Cuban National Association for the Blind in 1934. From the 1940s to the early 60s he collaborated and recorded with notable Cuban artists such as the Conjunto Casino and Arcaño y sus Maravillas.

An early exponent of jazz in Cuba he was a member of the Grupo Cubano de Música Moderna and continued his recording career with several albums on the EGREM label in Havana. Fast tracking to the 1990s we witness a number of his outstanding jazz recordings such as Barbarismo (1996), Tribute to Ernesto Lecuona (1997) and his Ancestral Reflections for the famed Blue Note label. As a pioneer, a progressive and influential jazz pianist in Cuba he has had a strong influence on the now globally-recognized jazz ensembles of Emiliano Salvador, Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna and Irakere.

Tonight’s composition “Gandinga, Mondongo y Sandunga” (the first two words describe two different kinds of stew, the third word describes someone who has a strong rhythm or groove) is a tricky interplay of the standard Cuban popular music rhythm of the clave with a syncopated ostinato. This tune has become a standard of the Cuban jazz repertoire.

Extrañando

(Cuba)

Miguelito Valdes

Extrañando (translates to “longing”) is a beautiful ballad in the style of a Cuban bolero, a slow and intimate couples dance, composed by trumpet player Miguelito Valdés. Described as one of Cuba’s most highly regarded trumpet players of his generation, he has performed with many of Cuba’s top performers, including the Cabaret Tropicana Orquesta, Pablo Milanés, Isaac Delgado, Mayito Rivera, Klimax, and the renowned pianist Chucho Valdés.

In 2000, he began playing with Omara Portuondo (Diva singer of Buena Vista Social Club) touring the world for six years. He has also played with important jazz musicians abroad, including Michael Brecker, Herbie Hancock, John Patitucci, Danilo Pérez, Wayne Shorter, and many others.

Palmas

(Puerto Rico)

Eddie Palmieri

Eddie Palmieri (1936- )

Bandleader, pianist, composer and nine-time Grammy winner Eddie Palmieri is an extraordinary personality in the world of Latin Jazz and Salsa music. His high-energy soloing and his high-octane arrangements have galvanized audiences around the world. He has over forty recordings with his ensemble La Perfecta featuring his work showcasing a who’s who of Jazz, Salsa and contemporary Latin American music.

This selection was originally released on his 1994 album by the same name. It is a wonderful example of his sophisticated harmonic language unfolding over a foundation of his “descarga” rhythms, the term describing the improvisational counterpoint of Latin percussion instruments at full tilt.

Return to Full Orchestra

Tango del Atardecer, Los Inmigrantes, Tango Bárbaro

(Argentina)  

Lalo Schifrin

Lalo Schifrin  (1932 – )   

Multiple Grammy-Award winner Lalo Schifrin was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was raised in a musical family and was the son of Luis Schifrin, a violinist for three decades in the orchestra of the famed Teatro Colón, one of South America’s most outstanding concert halls. His piano and composition studies led him away from his formal studies in law and sociology at the University of Buenos Aires and on to the Conservatoire de Paris where he met his long-time collaborator Astor Piazzolla. Schifrin made a living playing jazz establishments in Paris with Piazzolla in the late 1950s before moving to the USA. His compositional career in New York and Los Angeles included commissioned works for Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Xavier Cugat. This eventually led to his entry into TV and Film where his exemplary scores for the hugely popular TV shows Mission Impossible and Mannix eventually led him into the equally successful film scores to Cool Hand Luke, Coogan’s Bluff and Dirty Harry. In the 1990s he wrote many of the arrangements for the Three Tenors. Schifrin was awarded an honorary Oscar for his contributions to Hollywood films in 2018.

Vassourinhas

Mathias Da Rocha and Joana Batista Ramos

Matias Da Rocha (1864- date unknown) and Joana Batista Ramos (dates unknown)

Matias Da Rocha, born in 1864, and his cousin Joana Batista de Ramos composed the famous Carnival hymn, Vassourinhas in 1909, for the carnival of Recife in the east coast state of Pernambuco, Brazil. Although very little is known of these two composers, we do have accounts them being associated with and being founding members of the Clube Carnavalesco Misto of Recife, Pernambuco, this was one of the original clubs associated with mounting the now extraordinary Carnival of Recife. The Recife Carnival celebrations are second only to those of Rio de Janeiro’s in size, scope and national influence and are an enormous source of pride in this region of the country. Tonight’s performance of Vassourinhas (a Portuguese word meaning little broom or whisk), a fast-paced Frevo style typical of the city of Recife, is an appropriate tribute to fun and jubilation What could be more appropriate than one big, loud, fast finale of orchestral exhuberance?

Alternative piece:

El Cumbanchero

(Puerto Rico)

Rafael Hernández

Rafael Hernández (1892-1965)

Rafael Hernández is without a doubt Puerto Rico’s most well-known and respected composer. During his long and prolific career, he penned hundreds of songs some of which have become synonymous with the cultural identity of Puerto Ricans, especially those living in the diaspora. He composed Lamento Borincano, a melancholic lament depicting the struggles and dreams of a market peasant hoping to sell his goods during a particularly depressed and broken economy. The song went on to become a second and perhaps more heartfelt national anthem. Other major works such as Preciosa, Perfume de Gardenias, Campanitas de Cristal, Cachita and El Cumbanchero are Latin American standards that have been recorded by dozens of popular vocalists and ensembles around the world including Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, Desi Arnaz, Xavier Cugat, Jamaican reggae group Rockfort Rock and even covers by popular Finnish vocalists. El Cumbanchero was composed in 1947 in a dance style called rumba-guaracha.

El Cumbanchero is a Spanish term describing a dance-loving, lively party personality. Its appeal derives from its irresistible rhythm, its simple, straightforward lyrics, and its perfect setting for instrumental and vocal improvisation and soloing and alludes to the escape that rhythm offers those who surrender to its pulse and drive.

Technical Rider for Latin Nights Concert

Vibraphone – Adams Alpha or Concert Series, Yamaha 3710 or Musser M55

Vocal mics – One wireless headset for Sal Ferreras.

Monitors – Six to Eight monitors, one per sextet (octet) member

Piano – Amplification for the grand piano as per the orchestra’s dedicated sound technician

In order to have clear sightlines to the percussion section the piano should have the lid at its smallest opening or simply lid off. We’re open to alternate stage arrangement if that will solve space issues

Bass – Bass player requires a Mark Bass Amp or equivalent. She prefers to  mic the amp and can mix out the line from her Sonic Farm with the mic.

Tenor Sax/Flute – Two wireless mic’s required. One for the flute and the other for Tenor Sax

Congas – Conga player will play three congas, needs a mic on each conga plus an area mic for hand-held small percussion

Timbales – Overhead pair of instrument mics, kick drum mic, snare drum mic

Trumpet – One instrument mic for the trumpet

Stools – Need three high stools for bass, trumpet, and trombone