TEMBEMBE ENSAMBLE CONTINUO PROGRAM NOTES

Mexican music is a labyrinth, or rather a labyrinth of labyrinths. Anyone who comes close can get lost in that heap of forms, genres, instruments, names, influences, languages and even religions that are together, and many times intertwined, in the labyrinth of our music.

And this labyrinth itself gets lost among the strings of the guitar, of the guitars. If Latin America is the guitar continent–mejoranera, cuatro, bandola, tres, viola, charango, cinco y medio, tiple–Mexico, with its jarana, túa, sirincho, vihuela, bajo sexto, cardonal, guitarrón, huapanguera and so many others, is almost a continent in and of itself.

In Mexico, music and instrument join together and complement each other in the son. Sones and jarabes constitute the oldest and most beloved part of our traditional music. There is son de mariachi, in Jalisco, son abajeño in Michoacán, son huasteco and son de costumbre in the Huasteca, son arribeño in Guanajuato, son de tarima in Guerrero, son istmeño in Oaxaca and son jarocho in Veracruz; the son exists in almost the whole territory of the country, and the relationships among its variants are labyrinthine. And it happens that there were sones in both Spains (the old and the new) since the XVI century: chaconas, zarabandas, folías, canarios, jácaras, all of them were sones, and they were called sones on both sides of the Atlantic, and the fandango is the fiesta, the celebration of the sones.

Many of these sones have disappeared, but others continue among us. If we don't believe in this survival, we would have to assume instead an astounding series of coincidences between Spain and Mexico, for example that today exists a son de costumbre, called El Canario, whose music is virtually identical to the Spanish Canarios, or that the Jarocho Fandanguito is just the same as the Hispanic Fandango from the 18th century, or that the text of the Mexican corrido often begins as that of the Spanish jácaras...

It has been said that many of the fundamental features of Mexican culture are fully Baroque and that they were born in the 17th century. This is a particularly good guess in the terrain of music: the continuity of the son in Mexico is a bond that unites our present with our past. In this program, we put pieces for baroque guitar from Hispanic sources side by side with traditional Mexican sones. Our approach is based on manipulating the baroque music as little as possible.We decipher it just as it appears in the tablatures and perform it as we would perform any other work for baroque guitar. Mexican traditional music has been equally respected; we try to play the sones in the old way.

The pair Fandango-El Fandanguito shows a perfect connection. Both pieces are one and the same in terms of name, rhythmic-harmonic pattern and melodic outline. Other pairs, such as El Caballero-Los Negritos, have instead what we consider an “aural kinship”; their patterns are similar and both are documented in Mexican sources, even if they are not identical.

When we started our work on the celebrated Follia by Arcangelo Corelli, our violin player, Ulises, found that many of the melodic patterns in the violin part were very close to those of the Huasteco tradition of North East Mexico; this variant of Mexican son is always played using one violin and two different guitars. Therefore, our version of this piece creates a natural Spanish-Italian-Mexican connection: a musical work born in Spain, written by an Italian composer and played in the traditional Mexican way. It shows how this music, the son, is the link that connects us both in time and space with people from different ages and countries, so much so that we have included some pieces from Colombia and Peru that follow exactly the same ways that the Mexican sones do, though by a different name.

INDIVIDUAL BIOS

Ada Coronel has been a dancer and singer of Mexican music since her early childhood. At 15 she won a dance competition and at 17 founded her first group of Latin American music. She is a founding member of Yolotecuani, an ensemble dedicated to the music of son de tarima, from Guerrero, Mexico. She has taught son tixtleco in several schools in Mexico City and has developed a notable musical career in the Americas and Europe.

Ulises Martinez is a Mexican multi-instrumentalist with a wide range of musical interests, including Mexican traditional music, flamenco, blues, baroque music, and fusion. Born in Mexico City to a family of musicians from the town of Charapan, Michoacán, Ulises studied violin at the National Conservatory with Espín Yépez and Boris Klepov. He has developed an impressive concert career in America, Europe and Asia, with international groups and soloists from Mexico, Colombia and Spain. His recordings include over a dozen CDs for labels in Mexico and Europe, and he has composed music for the stage with the Compañía Nacional de Teatro, Mexico. Ulises teaches at workshops on Mexican traditional music and dance in professional institutions in Mexico and Colombia.

Leopoldo Novoa is a Mexican composer and performer born in Bogota, Colombia. He studied at the National Conservatory and the Universidad Pedagogica in Bogota, and later in the University of Mexico (UNAM), IRCAM in Paris and LIEM in Madrid. Leopoldo has worked on research projects on the traditional music of Mexico and Colombia, has composed chamber music for ensembles from Mexico, Japan and Venezuela, and is the author of an opera: La muerte y el hablador. His music for theater and dance has received several national awards in Mexico.

A Mexican jarana player, Enrique Barona was born in Mexico City and studied ethnomusicology in the University of Mexico (UNAM). His first-hand knowledge of the practice of Mexican traditional music was the result of more than forty years of fieldwork in several regions of the country. Maintaining an active musical career throughout America and Europe, Enrique has been a member of numerous traditional music groups and has collaborated with early music ensembles and symphony orchestras. He currently teaches jarana at Ollin Yoliztli School, in Mexico City.

Born in Mexico City, Eloy Cruz studied guitar with Guillermo Flores and vihuela with Isabelle Villey. He attended master classes with Abel Carlevaro, Leo Brouwer, Oscar Ghiglia, Javier Hinojosa, Hopkinson Smith and Pat O'Brien. Eloy is a founding member of La Fontegara-Mexico and Tembembe and has collaborated with chamber groups and concertized in Europe, America, Asia, and Africa. His recordings include music from the 16th to 21th centuries and his research projects relate to musicology and the history of the guitar; he is the author of a book on guitar history. Eloy has taught courses and master classes at numerous universities in the Americas, was a Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan and currently teaches at the University of Mexico (UNAM).