MUSIC
BY BRETT CAMPBELL
MUSICAL MASHUPS
A week of multicultural music, new and traditional, greets Eugene
M
ulti-culti is all the rage in music, food and the
rest of today’s global culture. But mixing
Latin American and European ingredients still
felt pretty novel back in 1954, when
Venezuelan composer Antonio Estévez
wrote his colorful Cantata Criolla, which Eugene
Concert Choir and Eugene Symphony will perform
April 30 at the Hult Center’s Silva Hall.
Estévez’s rhythmically charged half-hour composition
for orchestra, chorus and a pair of star vocal soloists flown
in from Venezuela sets to music a text by Venezuelan poet
Alberto Arvelo Torrealba that revolves around a dramatic
Faustian singing contest — sort of a musical boxing match
or bullfight — between the hero and the devil. Appropriate
to its name (“Creole” means, basically, a mashup of races or
languages), the cantata encompasses influences from Latin
America’s indigenous cultures as well as the mid-century
Atlantic modernism then beginning to dominate trans-
Atlantic classical music, ancient sacred music traditions and
earlier 20th-century European opera and classical music.
ECC will also sing Argentine composer Ariel
Ramírez’s groundbreaking Misa Criolla written a decade
after Estévez’s cantata. The folk mass’ diverse
instrumentation (Andean instruments like the quena flute
and strummed charango you might recall from Simon &
Garfunkel’s “El Condor Pasa,” as well as guitar, Argentine
percussion including bomba drums and harpsichord)
reflects its hybrid influences. An Andean music ensemble
performs in the Hult lobby before the show, and at 11 am
Eugene-area school kids will join ECC onstage at Silva to
sing excerpts from the evening program and more.
ESMA REDZEPOVA
There’s more choral artistry up the road in Salem at
Willamette University’s Hudson Hall April 30 and May 1,
when Oregon Bach Festival founder Helmuth Rilling
leads the Willamette Master Chorus in a pair of much
earlier cantatas by J.S. Bach, featuring a quartet of top
vocal soloists from Portland. And speaking of Bach, on
April 24 the Baroque music specialists in Oregon Bach
Collegium will play chamber music Bach’s son Carl
Philipp Emmanuel and contemporaries Quantz, Abel and
more at United Lutheran Church (2230 Washington Street).
Mark Adamo’s
Mezzo Hannah Penn — Jo March
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Musical mashups are nothing new to the Romani people,
who picked up and assimilated so many in their centuries-
long journeys across Asia and Europe. On April 29, the
University of Oregon’s World Music Series brings the
charismatic Macedonian singer and humanitarian activist
Esma Redžepova to Beall Hall. If you saw the “Queen of
Romani Music” some years back in Eugene as part of the
Gypsy Caravan (one of the 8000-plus concerts she’s
performed over a half-century), you’ll know why she’s
considered one of the great popularizers of Balkan music.
On May 1, still another great world-music tradition, the
gamelan music of Indonesia, is featured in the UO’s
Pacific Rim gamelan concert at Aasen-Hull Hall, which
includes premieres of new pieces for that bronze percussion
orchestra written by UO students. More UO new music is
featured in the free Oregon Composers Forum concert
April 22 at Beall, and still more contemporary music (by
women composers) resounds at Ova Novi Ensemble’s
April 25 Beall concert. On April 23, the UO Opera
Ensemble parties down with bibulous drinking songs
from great operas by Mozart, Strauss and more.
More multicultural musical mixes: On April 22 at
Cozmic’s mostly Aloha Friday, Stephen Inglis and Da
Ukulele Boyz showcase their mix of native Hawaiian
slack-key guitar, rock and original folk music. On April
29, Golden Bough blends Celtic instruments and musical
traditions with contemporary folk music. If you missed
Paul McCartney’s Portland show last week, you can hear
another musical mashup at the Shedd’s April 27 Jazz
Heritage Project concert, which features jazzy versions
of Beatles hits led by tenor saxophonist and radio host
Carl Woideck and his ensemble.
And on May 4 at The Shedd, guitarist Chico Schwall
leads a program that illustrates how the most popular
musical mashup of all — rock’n’roll — emerged from
immigrant traditions including Cajun, gospel, bluegrass,
jazz and blues music. ■
May 14 & 15
7:30 pm Saturday
2:30 pm Sunday