Early Music Now kicks off its season in sizzling style by hosting, as they describe it, an “ensemble of world-class musicians focused on intercultural fusion musical traditions,” specifically evincing European Renaissance and Baroque music “and its confluence with the music of the Americas.” That ensemble—Rumbarroco—has built a solid reputation by embracing our seemingly interminable love affair with Latin music.
As they explain it, their repertoire incorporates “the rhythmic vitality that has persisted in [Latin] music in its many diverse genres from the 1400s to today,” and emphasizes “how European classical music was, and can be, revitalized by adding indigenous and African rhythms and instruments.” Of course, cultural influence is not a one-way street. Rubarroco also shows us classical music’s “influence on Latin American folk music and Afro-Hispanic music by performing them with Baroque instruments.”
Rumbarroco comprises violinist and viola da gamba player Yi-Li Chang; cornettist and theorbist Nathanial Cox; guitarists Laury Gutiérrez and Wismer Jiménez; double bassist Kirsten Lamb; bandola player Roberto Pérez Oraá, percussionist and maracas player Alexis Soto and vocalists Camila Parias and Daniela Tošić. Together, they present “Fiesta: A Hispanic Heritage Celebration” on Saturday, Oct. 17 at 5 p.m. at UW-Milwaukee’s Helene Zelazo Center or the Performing Arts, 2419 E. Kenwood Blvd.
Several of the works on the “Fiesta” program go back so far that the fog of centuries past has obscured their compositional origins; these include Morena me yaman, ¡Qué bonito Niño chiquito! and Pabanilla. Even when the composers are known, they remain fairly obscure to us: Diego Ortiz (ca. 1510-ca. 1570), Santiago de Murcia (1673-1739), Juan Arañés (died ca. 1649) and Mateo Flecha (1481-1553). Perhaps best known is the Catalan composer Antonio Soler (1729-1783), whose Fandango con Joropo is on the program. Soler’s fame rests upon his keyboard sonatas, which contribute mightily to the harpsichord, fortepiano and organ repertoire. A great charm of early music concerts is that they allow us to hear music we’ve likely never heard before and, in Rumbarroco’s capable hands, hear it in fascinating arrangements. How fortunate we are, here in the early 21st century, to have such rich musical history to draw upon and experience anew.
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CLASSICAL HAPPENING:
Young Composer Competition Winners
Woman’s Club of Wisconsin
813 E. Kilbourn Ave.
7 p.m., Oct. 16
The adjective “free” garners immediate attention, and this is presently my goal, for it’s worth yours. Milwaukee’s MacDowell Club presents the winners of its Young Composer Competition, the entries for this annual event comprising six-to-eight-minute song cycles for solo voice and instrumental accompaniment. The composers, all 25 or younger, are either Wisconsin natives or enrolled in Wisconsin schools. This year, first prize went to Mequon native and Yale University alumna Emily Cooley for her song cycle, A Circle Transparent Above Us. In addition, concertgoers will hear the second-place winner’s piece as well as musical performances by the club’s 2015 scholarship winners.
