Lorraine Yee of the Jing Mo Chinese Athletic Association (https://www.jingmo.com/history.html) explains the difference between dragons and lions, and why the best fighter doesn't always win. It's the Lunar New Year 2022 --  Year of the Tiger -- celebration at the Anza Library, Outer Richmond, San Francisco. Chance encounter on Saturday, Jan, 22, 2022 while walking around the 'hood.

Welcoming the Year of the Tiger with a Lion Dance: Jing Mo Chinese Athletic Association

The year is 1978, in full Cold War, and I am going traveling to the Soviet Union with my mission penciled on a scrap of paper. I'm on a quest to find those haunting eyes and a connection severed by war and history that only music can redeem. This is the true story of how I found myself behind the Iron Curtain with a Costa Rican choir, searching for -- and singing to -- Bertha, my Lara (of Dr. Zhivago fame).
Music credits (in order used)
* From Russia With Love,  Gájer Bálint / Matt Munro 
* Lara's Theme from Dr. Zhizago, Lev Zabeginsky, balalaika
* vocalise, Chamber Choir of the Costa Rican National Symphony Orchestra 
* O Costa Rica (trad. Costa Rica)
* 1812 Overture (clip), P. Tchaikovsky
* Mi Vida Es Cantar (clip), Celia Cruz
* The Star Spangled Banner 
* Costa Rica National Anthem, sung by Coro Lirico Herediano
* Romeo and Juliet (clip), P. Tchaikovsky
* La Guardia Morada (trad. Costa Rica), sung by the Chamber Choir of the Costa Rican National Symphony Orchestra

To Russia with Love:  A Musical Memory and Cold War Story

La Cueca Larga (Chile) 
Words: Nicanor Parra, Music: Gustavo Becerra 
Recorded by Coro Bellas Artes, Victor Alarcon, dir.

Coro Bellas Artes

La Cueca Larga

40-min. Spanish-language feature based on my 12 min English-language piece with Alejo Torrejón (track on this Soundcloud page), produced in 2022n by the makers of the Argentine podcast series Fugas. With just a soccer ball and a knife, 72 Bolivian political prisoners locked away on the island of Coati overpowered their jailers, commandeered a fleet of rickety boats across Lake Titicaca, trekked by night into Peru, and escaped unscathed from the clutches of the Gen. Hugo Banzer regime to safe haven in Cuba. The 1972 escape from the Alcatraz of the Altiplano exposed the Bolivian military's repressive round-up of its leftist opponents, as recalled 50 years later by its aging protagonists.
* VIDEO (in Spanish with English subtitles)Buenos Aires, May 2022:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5b7Iax-XFo
(English subtitles do not correspond exactly to English transcript)
* PHOTO GALLERY:
https://www.revistaanfibia.com/web-stories/fugas-la-alcatraz-del-altiplano/?fbclid=IwAR3s7BcTNa4xmmrCFsdvuBismMpvEKUBGAHN2GSCWMjCvtThyReHpaXgFD8

La Alcatraz del Altiplano (40 min. Spanish version by Fugas podcast)

In honor of Indigenous Day 2022,  La Raza Chronicles (KPFA 94.1 FM) rebroadcast this 2016 interview with Mapuche songstress Beatriz Pichi Malén. 
The singer-songwriter takes her inspiration from traditional Mapuche music, singing in Mapudungun. 
Interview conducted in January 2013 in Santiago, Chile. 
Song selection taken from BPM's albums: Plata (2000) and Añil (2005).
Originally  aired on La Raza Chronicles, KPFA 94.1 FM, Tuesday, June 30, 2015. Updated to include snippets from her Oct 2 presentation in the Victor Jara Memorial Festival, marking what would have been the 90th birthday of the slain protest singer, killed 49 years ago by the Pinochet regime. (The concert took place in the stadium where Victor Jara was killed, and that now bears his name.)

Mapuche Songstress Beatriz Pichi Malén (Festival Victor Jara, 2022)

I'm a singer in the San Francisco Bach Choir. Our director Magen Solomon asked me to comment on our Tesoros Dorados concert because I've had the good fortune to visit some of the churches where this music was written, then lost, then rediscovered, and now restored.  

I lived in Latin America for many decades, and there was never a time there that I was not singing in a choir -- or two. Works from the cathedrals and chapels of what had been the Spanish colonies in the Americas were becoming a staple of Latin American choral repertory. 

I recently read a comment by a scholar that "it can be tempting to think of Latin America Baroque music as something recently rediscovered, an exotic add-on to the story of 'Western' music. But it is nothing of the sort. A Bolivian orchestra playing the music of Domenico Zipoli in the heart of the jungle is part of the same tradition as English choral societies singing Messiah."

The eastern part of Bolivia known as the Chiquitania is awash with the sounds of Zipoli, who is always a featured composer of the biannual music festival held there, and whose works are part of our program.

I attended the festival in 2008 and I had the opportunity to interview Father Piotr Nawrot, a Polish priest and musicologist who was living there. He had already painstakingly restored 27 volumes -- and counting -- of music composed by European priests and their Indian acolytes, and played on instruments that they built themselves.

The manuscripts had been left behind in dust bins and church balconies when the Jesuits were expelled by the Spanish crown in 1767. Others were in the possession of ordinary people who had safeguarded them in boxes in their homes. 

Here's what Nawrot told me that people would tell him: 

"Father, if this is lost — if it dies, this tradition — we are all lost. We will die together with this manuscript. You see, this music was not just music, it was sacred music." 

I guess that's what you'd expect a priest to say, no? 

For me, I love the fact that this music has a home-grown, American history. We sing hymns in Nahuatl  and processionals in Quechua to Diospamaman. We sing a saucy invitation to a divine husband from a cloistered nun who was the first Latin American feminist. 

There's nothing in this music to suggest that terrible things were happening outside the cloister walls -- things like cultural erasure, subjugation, and the rest. This music was written to evangelize,  but it is the same music that convinced the colonizing Europeans that the "Indians" in their power were not animals, as professed --  but human... and divinely inspired.

That's what I love about our Tesoros Dorados concert.

What I love about the San Francisco Bach Choir's Tesoros Dorados concert

The middle of October hangs heavy in the hearts of Chileans as it brings to memory the Zarpazos del Puma... the military killing spree that took place a month after the September 1973 golpe when a death squad in a Puma helicopter touched down in 10 Chilean cities and summarily shot to death more than 100 suspected opponents.
 
Winston Cabello, the brother of our guest Zita Cabello Barrueto -- --  was killed 49 years ago on Oct 17 in Copiapó. Exile brought Zita to the Bay Area shortly after that, and she lives in Oakland.  
 
In 2003, after years of tracking down and interviewing scores of witnesses, Zita located her brother's killer in Miami, Florida. Armando Fernandez Larios was a former Chilean military officer enjoying special protection from the US government. With the help of pro-bono lawyers, the Cabello family won a landmark civil judgment in a US federal court in Florida against Fernandez Larios for his role in Winston’s death. It was the first jury verdict for crimes against humanity in US history.

We first broadcast this interview with Zita Cabello-Barrueto in March 2016. Chile was requesting the extradition of Fernando Larios. But the US Supreme Court denied that request in May 2016.  And nothing has happened since.   

The music in this clip comes from "Caravana," a work by Chilean composer Sebastián Errázuriz. It was written in homage to another victim of the Caravan of Death -- composer and youth orchestra director Jorge Peña Hen.
 
Zita Cabello-Barrueto's book "In Search of Spring: How the Sister of a Pinochet Victim Prevailed in a US Court" can be obtained from booksellers around the Bay Area.

UPDATE: "In Search of Spring: How the Sister of a Pinochet Victim Prevailed in a US Court"

This charanguista did well for himself as he strolled between the non-perishables and the cheeses in Sucre's municipal market, singing improvised songs on Christmas themes. The stall owner asked him to sing to her late departed mother, whose portrait she is pointing to. Wen the cheesemonger slipped him a coin, he started singing the praises of the humble cow, who provides the meat served up in the traditional "picana" Christmas meal, then continued down the isle wishing everyone a "feliz navidad."

Strolling Charango  Caroler in Sucre Municipal Market

Last year, I was asked by NPR's alt.latino to tape an interview with Chilean rap artist Anita Tijoux. The interview, for a Valentine's Day show about love songs, was never aired. But asked about songs to parental love, Anita -- who was very, very pregnant on this hot summer day -- shared this tender reflection on what she termed " 2 BPM LOVE BODY: the wonderment of having two heartbeats -- hers and the babies -- beating at two different rhythms within.
Read more of Anita Tijoux's thoughts on music and motherhood from Colorlines, at: http://colorlines.com/archives/2014/07/ana_tijoux_talks_music_and_motherhood.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter


Anita Tijoux "Two BPM of Love Body": The Musical Beat of Motherhood

Hot to Lip Trill... homework assignment for "How to Write for the Ear" workshop with Sally Herships of Radio Boot Camp.

How to Lip Trill

Hey, it's your birthday today and Santiago is playing your song! Let's celebrate with a birthday medley of  music boxes, organ grinders, kletzmer bands,  jazz pianists, and  yours truly singing  "El Día de tu Cumpleaños,"  Violeta Parra's Chilean folk version of the universal hymn to another year gone by, and another to come!
_____________________
EL DIA DE TU CUMPLEAÑOS (English translation on its way...)
(por Violeta Parra)

M’hijita, llegaste al mundo en hora muy principal.
Ya redondeaste un año, yo te vengo a celebrar.
Que te sirvan la mistela y la tortilla candeal
El día de tu cumpleaños es cosa muy principal.

Como no tengo qué darte y yo te quisiera dar,
yo quiero que los rayitos del sol te han de despertar.
Y por la tarde el lucero que te venga a saludar,
El día de tu cumpleaños es cosa muy principal.

Que te sienten a la mesa al lado de tu mamá
Al otro lado que brillen todita la rescoldá
Que te sirvan la mistela y la tortilla candeal
y pongan a tu ventana la flor de la temporá.

El día de tu cumpleaños  habría que embanderar
desde Árica a Magallanes con banderas colorá.
Que viva tu nacimiento, botoncito de rosal
Con la voluntad del cielo
¡QUE VIVAS CIEN AÑOS MÁS!


A Happy Birthday song medley in Santiago sounds

Upa! Estás de cumpleaños y todo el mundo está cantando a ti. Desde las cajitas de música a los organilleros, los músicos Klezmer, mis parientes bolivianos, un pianista de jazz y una humilde interpretación mía de "El Día de tu Cumpleaños", versión sui generis del himno universal cumpleañero de la gran folclorista chilena Violeta Parra. Todo para celebrar el aniversario de tu llegada a este mundo. FELIZ CUMPLE!


En boca de todos: Feliz Cumpleaños te cantamos a ti

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, I lived in a quiet neighborhood in Santiago, Chile, just around the corner from a former extermination site. The murders conducted by the Pinochet regime's Lautaro Brigade on Simon Bolivar Avenue were among the last of its crimes to come to light -- because no one imprisoned there got out alive. Once the location of the site was pinpointed, neighbors like myself were forced to come to grips with the death camp in our midst.

This report was taped on Sept 11, 2012 in La Reina, Santiago. This version aired  La Raza Chronicles, KPFA 94.1 FM, on Sept. 12, 2023, and is an update of a version aired in Sept. 2015.

Santiago, Chile: The Death Camp in My Neighborhood (2023 update)

What's French, Serbian, Roma, Samoan, Ladino, German, and English? This ROLL UP THE RUGS concert by the San Francisco Bach Choir on  Oct. 15 at Calvary Presbyterian Church. Here's the pirate video: https://www.sfbach.org/concert-20231015/

"Roll Up the Rugs!" San Francisco Bach Choir

All Children Young to Slay: The Coventry Carol, from Herod to Netanyahu

A (Mostly) English Christmas Concert, San Francisco Bach Choir, California Brass Quintet, and organist John Walko. Dr. Magen Solomon conducting.
Dec 3, 2023, 
See video here:  https://www.sfbach.org/concert122023/

A (Mostly) Engilsh Christmas: Dec. 2023 concert by the SF Bach Choir

This fun crowd is posing for its only concert as the San Jerónino Singers, performed at the Alianza Francesa in San Jose, Costa Rica in 1979. Except for me, all the singers were all US musicians "imported" into the Costa Rica National Symphony (some as Peace Corps volunteers) to play and teach.  But they also wanted to sing. So trumpter Roger Wesby pulled together this a cappella choir with the help of his wife Barbara. She wrote the two final pieces on this tape. Her tight-lipped but polite exasperation could not stop me from loudly singing a terribly wrong note at the end of her brand-new, first-ever performance of "Noel."
PROGRAM (approx): 1. Alle-psallite (France s. XIII); 2. Gloria  (English, s.  XIV)  3. ?Alma Redemptoris Mater (Gme Dufay); 4. Ave Maria (Josquin Des Pres); 5. O seignoir, loué será (Sweelinck); 6. Ave Verum Corpus (Byrd); 7. Cantate domine. (Hans Leo Hassler); 8. ? French (?); 9. Bonjour Mon Coeur. (Orlando di Lasso); 10. Allez, mes premieres amours (Guillaume Costeley); 11. Allons gai, gai (Guillaume Costeley); 12. O vin en Vigne (Orlando di Lasso); 13. Amours, Partes (Claude de Sermisy); 14. ? unknown (French) starts with instruments; 15. ? unknown (french); 16. Revecey venir du printemps (Claude le Jeune); 17. Mother I will have a husband (Th. Vautor); 18. Shoot, my love, I care not (Morley); 19. April is in my mistress' face (Morley); 20. Make a Joyful Noise (Barbara Wesby); 21. Noel (Barbara Wesby)

San Jeronimo Singers in the Alianza Francesa (1979)

Maybe because i live just half-a-block from it, the magnificent Holy Virgin Russian Orthodox Cathedral is exerting its influencing me. On Orthodox Christmas last Sunday (Jan 8, 2024), I heard bells ringing, so I followed my ears to Geary and 26th, where a young man in embroidered robes was furiously ringing them, using both hands and feet, to call the faithful to the service.  I listened from the sidewalk outside until the voices of the choir drew me in, with its all-enveloping, four-part chant, recorded discreetly on my phone from my pocket.

Bells, Choir and a Really Real Russian Bass from the Holy Virgin Cathedral Christmas Service 2024

 I didn't report this piece but I did make it happen... connecting PRI reporter Alex Gallafent to the wondrous Miguel Castillo, translating for him, and encouraging the very private don Miguel to share his very private musical world. With organs and old keyboards being a rather arcane interest, I was completely surprised when Alex liked the idea. When Miguel ushered Alex into the back room, Alex fell silent in awe, then  started asking a barrage of questions about manual stops and tubes and other strange things that only organ aficionados understand.  Later, I understood why: Alex confessed that he had spent his youth in robes and rehearsals as a boy chorister in one of the UK's great cathedrals.  For me, Miguel's back room is a temple to keyboards. But it's actually just a suped-up "media agua" (prefabricated shed mostly used for emergency housing). Miguel Castillo is one of my heroes. And I am posting this clip today in honor of the fact that he is launching a book today on another unsung Chilean hero: Jorge Peña Hen, the father of youth orchestras in Chile, assassinated by the zarpazos  of El Puma, the gruesome military killing spree through northern Chile in 1973. Gracias, Miguel. Jorge Peña, presente!

Learn more at: http://www.pri.org/stories/2013-03-07/keyboard-collector-santiago

The Keyboard Collector of Santiago

Voci Women’s Vocal Ensemble looks to the heavens with “Celestial Bodies: The Beauty of Distant Things,” the 14th in its annual “Voices in Peace” concert series.

The Oakland-based chamber group performs a radiant selection of music that invokes the sun, moon, and stars, and that voices the longing, love, and other complex emotions they inspire.

Featuring works by Maurice Duruflé, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Fanny Mendelssohn, Bedrich Smetana, Orlando di Lasso, Claudio Monteverdi, Carl Orff, Chen Yi, Irving Berlin, San Francisco composer Mark Winges, and Voci artistic director Anne Hege; plus a commissioned premiere by Voci’s composer-in-residence, Ann Callaway.

The musical highlights in this preview come from works for this concert recorded by Voci, including "Tota Pulcha Est" (Maurice Durufle); "The Moon Welcome" (Mark Winges), "Wandl' ich in dem Wald des Abends" (Fanny Mendelssohn) and "Henry Purcell (Ann Callaway). Ella Fitzgerald sings the snippet of  "Blue Skies" (Irving Berlin).

WHEN and WHERE:

Saturday, November 14, 2015, 4:00 PM
Piedmont Center for the Arts
801 Magnolia Avenue
Piedmont, CA 94611

and

Saturday, November 21, 2015, 2:00 PM
St. Perpetua Catholic Parish
3445 Hamlin Rd.
Lafayette, CA 94549

TICKETS

$25 suggested donation at the door; $20 advance; $15 students
Available at the door; or online from brownpapertickets.com or www.vocisings.org 
Information: (510) 531-8714

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The 2015–2016 season marks Voci Women’s Vocal Ensemble’s 24th year. Founded in 1991, Voci is recognized as one of the finest choral groups in the Bay Area.

Voci’s commitment to musical excellence, unique mastery of style and technique, and adventurous and innovative programming have earned high praise from critics and choral musicians alike. Voci champions music for and by women. Through its annual commissioning and mentoring program, New Works Project, Voci commissions new works by both mid-career and developing local women composers. The 2014–2016 New Works Project composer-in-residence is El Cerrito-based composer Ann Callaway.

This is Artistic Director Dr. Anne Hege’s third year with Voci. Born in Oakland, CA, Anne began her musical studies singing with the Piedmont East Bay Children's Choir and the Oakland Youth Chorus. She completed her BA studies in music at Wesleyan University, and an MA in composition at Mills College. She recently completed her PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University where she studied the role of the body in musical performance. She has founded and directed various vocal ensembles including the Albany Community Chorus (California), Cuatro Vientos (Mexico City), and Celestial Mechanics (New Jersey). Anne performs as a vocalist, composer, improviser, and electronic musician in her performance duo, New Prosthetics; the laptop ensemble Sideband; and for the Carrie Ahern Dance Company. She currently enjoys directing Voci Women’s Vocal Ensemble, directing Level IV of the San Francisco Girls Chorus, teaching at Holy Names University, and composing for chorus and electronics.

Ann Callaway is the inaugural composer of Voci’s New Works Project. Based in El Cerrito, she is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Guild of Organists. She has held residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Leighton Artist Colony in Banff.


Fall 2015 Concert Preview: Celestial Bodies, the Beauty of Distant Things

Berkeley’s new cell phone safety warning one step closer to reaching shoppers… maybe
	
Do you use a cell phone? Sure you do:  probably use it all the time. But have you ever taken a close look at the documentation that came with your phone?

Last May, the Berkeley City Council decided they wanted to make these warnings clearer to consumers. They passed an ordinance requiring retailers to share the information with customers at the point of sale.

However, an industry lawsuit called the ordinance “scientifically baseless.” And a district court blocked Berkeley from making the information more accessible.

On Tuesday night, the Berkeley City Council unanimously voted to remove seven words from its cell phone ordinance -- thereby establishing a national precedent for consumer safety information.

What seven words about cell phone radiation did they cut?: “This potential risk is greater for children.” 

And what did they keep?  

Dr. Joel Moskowitz, director of the University of California Berkeley Center for Family and Community Health explains:  “Basically, you shouldn’t keep the phone in your pocket, breast, or pants pocket, or in your bra. You should not keep it directly next to your body. These warnings were required by the federal government, the FCC. Currently they've been hiding these safety instructions. They bury them in the manual or in the phone itself.  And they don't want the consumer to see this information.”        

But the CTIA-Wireless Association sees things differently. The industry group claims that Berkeley’s cautions are false, and that retailers cannot be compelled to say something they do not believe in. 

Its lawyer Theodore Olson puts it this way: “Berkeley is perfectly capable and quite free to express its own opinions in its own way. But it can't make someone else carry their messages.” 

On September 21, A U.S. District Court Judge backed Berkeley with one exception. That exception is still  “a matter of scientific debate.”

Berkeley councilmember Kriss Worthington explained:  “The judge indicated that one sentence needed to be removed from the city’s  “Right to Know” ordinance, and that’s a small price to pay, so we are delighted. It’s not a problem to remove it.”


This is the kind of groundbreaking consumer health legislation that Berkeley has pioneered -- Like its 1977 ban on smoking in restaurants, and last year’s soda tax. City officials say the process to enact the ordinance could be completed in a matter of weeks. That is, of course, unless the cell phone industry takes more legal action. 

Here again is lawyer Theodore Olson: “If every city in California and every city in Texas and every city in every other state comes up with a different warning label, it's going to be impossible to market that product. And then you are going to pay a lot more for your cell phone. And the FCC does not want that.” 

So what do Berkeley cell phone retailers and shoppers think? Salespeople and store managers at six stores along Shattuck Avenue did not want to go on-the-air with their views. But they all told me that it’s the rare customer who expresses concern about cell phone safety. 

Shopper Laurel Sharp was looking for wireless headphones at one store. Outside, she expressed a thought echoed by many.

 “I feel like cell phone radiation is a well-know idea and that it doesn’t matter. People are not not going to use their cell phones. There’s so much information about things that are bad for you.  But I do think it’s great that people are concerned that you would have a right to know, and so I think it should be the law.” 

And for now, in Berkeley, that’s close to being the case. 




Berkeley has its ground-breaking cell phone health warning... maybe (KALW 91.7 FM, Oct 8, 2015)

Bolivian Mission Towns Revive Baroque Legacy
Broadcast on NPR May 15, 2008
At an international Baroque music festival this month, strains of Bach and Vivaldi are stirring in the same mission towns that the Jesuits established in the 17th century. The festival takes place in an area known as the Chiquitania — a World Heritage Site that is home to the Chiquitano Indians, the original inhabitants of the region in eastern Bolivia.
Its eight mission towns not only have restored their original churches but have reconstructed thousands of pages of original musical scores from the Jesuit period that began with the 1691 founding of the San Javier mission.
The towns' children are keeping the musical legacy alive. Over the last decade, youth orchestras have sprung up in every mission in the lush, steamy lowlands, reviving interest in Baroque culture.
Father Piotr Nawrot, a Polish priest and musicologist, has painstakingly restored 27 volumes of music, a treasure trove that he calls his "second conversion."
Among his discoveries was that, while the Jesuits used music as a tool of evangelization, the indigenous populations transformed it into their own.
"I believe we should never call these Jesuit missions. They should be called Chiquitano missions....The mission would belong to the people," Nawrot says.
Ariel Suarez, a 16-year-old violinist from the Orchestra of the Mission of San Jose de Chiquitos, is part of that legacy.
Suarez and his fellow orchestra members perform in bare feet and simple garb to express their indigenous lineage. He says the young musicians feel the music of their ancestors "in their heart" and the stormy rhythms of their tropical climate in their playing. Their musical tradition is a cross-pollination of the cultural impulses of Europe and the indigenous traditions of the Chiquitano.
Musicians in the San Jose Orchestra keep a grueling schedule, rehearsing four to five hours a day. But director Santiago Lusardi says they also possess an innate talent, passed down from earlier generations, that startled Europeans when they first learned of the Indians' musical prowess.
"In Europe, they really were surprised. They were discussing if the [Indians] were people or animals — but they were playing like people. So that's why they say, 'They can't talk but they can play like people, so they are people.' It's incredible, but it was like this," Lusardi says.
The Spanish Crown ordered the Jesuits to quit the South American interior in 1767. They left behind thousands of manuscripts, now restored, that make up the largest Jesuit collection of music in the Americas and Asia. It's stored in the Mission of Concepcion, the nerve center for Chiquitania's musical restoration.
Project overseer Javier Mendoza says he'd rather not know the value of the archive, which has not been assessed — he gets nervous thinking about theft.
Lusardi, conductor of the San Jose Orchestra, gets goose bumps viewing the archive. "This is the magic of music right here," he says. "You can take a piece of paper from 300 or 400 years ago and bring it alive again by playing the music that's written on it."
The 1986 film The Mission — with Ennio Morricone's soaring score — stirred interest in the missions that stretched from Argentina north to the Chiquitania.
Nawrot, the Polish priest, says many of the centuries-old musical manuscripts he reconstructed were in the hands of ordinary people who had stored them alongside precious heirlooms in simple boxes. Other scores turned up in dust bins in forgotten church balconies.
But Nawrot says people more commonly safeguarded the music and would tell him, "Father, if this is lost — if it dies, this tradition — we are all lost. We will die together with this manuscript."
"This music was not just music, it was sacred music," Nawrot says. Even today, the missions' young musicians say it makes them "feel closer to God."

mplates/story/story.php?storyId=90321843

Bolivian Mission Towns Revive Long-Lost Baroque Musical Legacy

TOMORROW!!
 Saturday, May 21, 2:00 PM**  
St. Perpetua Catholic Parish, 3454 Hamlin Road, Lafayette

Voci Women’s Vocal Ensemble, directed by Anne Hege, presents a wry, sometimes bemused exploration in song of forgotten ways of life.

The concert also features the premiere of “On Music and Nature,” a trilogy of works by Bay Area composer Ann Callaway based on the poems of 19th century English mystic Gerard Manley Hopkins. Callaway is the inaugural composer of Voci’s New Works Project.

“Songs of the Bygone” revives aspects of daily life from years past through works by J.S. Bach, Johannes Brahms, Gustav Holst, Gyorgy Ligeti, Otmar Macha, Arne Mellnas, Thomas Morley, Henry Purcell, Jeno von Takacs, Gwyneth Walker and Alice Parker.

TICKETS: Available at the door or online at: www.vocisings.org/tickets.php
MORE INFORMATION: Tel. (510) 531-8714


Spring 2016 Concert Preview. Songs of the Bygone: Traces of a Vanishing World

PLAYLIST: Voci’s 25th Anniversary Concerts

Saturday, November 12, 2:00 pm // St Mary Magdalen Church, Berkeley
Sunday, November 20, 4:00 pm // St. Perpetua Catholic Church, Lafayette

“Voci Playlist” is  a selection of our  favorite works, chosen by Voci singers, past directors  and accompanists.  Examples include fabulous works by Eve Beglarian, Bela Bartok, Johannes Brahms, Benjamin Britten, Eleanor Daley, Maurice Durufle, Morten Lauridsen, Guillaume de Machaut, Felix Mendelssohn, former Voci Artistic Director Jude Navari, Violeta Parra, Karin Rehnqvist and Elisabeth Szonyi.

Join us for these joyous events - and our post-concert celebratory receptions!
 
When we look back over our 25 years, we have much to be proud of.  We have built a reputation as one of the finest choral groups in the Bay Area, and have performed with a wide range of artists and choruses at concerts, festivals and benefit events.  We have been nurtured and challenged by a group of top-notch leaders, including our current Artistic Director, the amazingly talented composer, performer and conductor  Anne  Hege.

Fall 2016 Concert Preview: Voci's 25th Anniversary "Playlist" Concerts

"Canciones Corales de América Latina"
Coro de Cámara de la Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Costa Rica.
Dirigido por Maestro Marco Dusi.   

* El Torito	
* Caña Dulce	
* Indio Enamorado	
* Pampa	
* Aquel Arroyito	
* Mañanitas de Mi Tierra	
* La Guaria Morada	
* Amor de Temporada	
* Naranjitay	
* Apujllay	
* Bullerengue	
* La Tranquera	
* Na Bahia Tem	
* Olê Muie Rendera	
* Oido a la Pulpa	
* Duerme Negrito	
* La Bamba	
-- Ediciones Interamericanas de Música (OEA), July1980

Canciones corales de América Latina: Coro de Camara de la Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Costa Rica

“Esta canción fue compuesta a pedido de Enrique Bello, quien la víspera de su cumpleaños expresó el deseo de ser festejado con una canción de aniversario típicamente chilena, y dejar de mano el tan socorrido y horrible ‘Happy Birthday’. Violeta, al oír esto, dijo de inmediato: ‘No seré yo quien se haga la sorda’, y compuso esta notable canción con acompañamiento de ‘chapecao’, de manera que puede también ser bailada. Sus estrofas son de seis versos (sic), y en ella la autora emplea el mayor número de ‘vocablos’ populares”.

Con estas palabras Gastón Soublette presenta esta obra en la contraportada del vinilo original que le dio cabida, editado por el sello Odeón en 1961 con el título El folklore de Chile vol. VIII. Toda Violeta Parra. La anécdota no es trivial: como canción festiva –cosa ya poco frecuente en nuestra música nacional–, esta no solo hace mención al paso de los años, sino –con esa poesía tan propia de Violeta Parra, tan auténtica y difícil de igualar– a las relaciones humanas que iluminan nuestro andar. Así, entregando un sentido a la celebración en juego, “El día de tu cumpleaños” sería, sin lugar a dudas, un gran regalo para todos los chilenos. Solo nos queda entonarla para festejar.
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El día de tu cumpleaños
ya habría que embanderar
desde Arica a Magallanes
con banderas colorás.
Que viva tu nacimiento,
bello botón de rosal.
Por la voluntad del cielo,
¡que vivas cien años más!
--Violeta Parra
(Cover art by Pati Aguilera, Santiago, Chile)

El "Feliz Cumpleaños" de Violeta Parra

It's the most spectacular jailbreak you've never heard of. Like so many other great Latin American escapades, it started with a soccer match.  The game took place on an island in the middle of Lake Titicaca, the inland sea between Bolivia and Peru.  It's an island that once housed the Virgin Brides of the Inca. Tourists know it as the Island of the Moon. At the time, it was home to scores of political prisoners -- young revolutionaries in the Che Guevara mold. They knew it as Coati, the Alcatraz of the Andes, a prison from which there was no escape.  Until one day, a well-placed kick of a soccer ball propelled its 72 inmates into freedom.
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PHOTOS: Map of escape route; postcard from Island of the Moon; Alejandro Torrejón, with photo of the plaza of Sucre, and with a candidate for the Chuquisaca Senate. Is it intentional or coincidental that "el Profesor" has coati hides like trophies on the wall?
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ENGLISH VOICE: Yvan Iturriaga
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MUSIC

Viva Mi Patria Bolivia   
Benjo Cruz 
https://ww.youtube.com/watch?v=qIR4ciOqeU0

Lamento Boliviano
Viento Andino
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jSQTYCdnSg

Altiplano
Fiesta Aymara (1975-Maya)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W06jdXxmgmg

Kamaq
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7U_tnxdPq8
 
A Cuba 
Victor Jara
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGXk0iPxvAI

La Internacional
Partido Comunista de Uruguay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRrS71dKhi8

El Regreso 
Matilde Cazasola
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYe8VcdkldM

Viva Mi Patria Bolivia 
A. Camacho (sung by Joan Baez and Mimi Fariña)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whnWON6Tvzk

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