Category Archives: Camerata Gordon Campbell

Behind the Chamber: Poetry of Frost and Shakespeare

Community Chorus of Culiacán

Community Chorus of Culiacán

“Anyone who doesn’t like music shouldn’t be trusted.”
—paraphrase of Shakespeare’s sonata

Do you love the poetry of William Shakespeare and Robert Frost? And what about choral music? There are few feelings that parallel the sound of a hundred voices lifted in song… The seventh event in this year’s Camerata Gordon Campbell series will showcase Maestro’s Campbell’s two favorite choral pieces.

Shakespeare actually has a poem called “Serenade to Music,” (from The Merchant of Venice) which was actually set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), perhaps England’s greatest modern composer. He composed nine symphonies and five operas, plus a lot of choral music. Of particular interest to me is that he traveled the English countryside at the turn of the 20th century to collect folk songs and carols, thus saving them for future generations. He also wrote hymns. His ashes are interred in Westminster Abbey near Purcell’s.

Randall Thompson, composer (1899-1994) of three symphonies and two string quartets, also wrote choral music his entire life—including the famous Allelujia, which premiered at Tanglewood (the Boston Symphony’s summer home) in 1940, and has opened each Tanglewood season ever since. Interesting trivia: Thompson was turned down when auditioning for the Harvard Glee Club as an undergrad.

Bringing to life the poetry of Frost and Shakespeare, and the musical compositions of Williams and Thompson, will be the Community Chorus of Culiacán, this Sunday, February 22nd, at noon in the Angela Peralta Theater. This is the second to the last performance in this year’s .

In our latest entry in the “Behind the Chamber” series, Maestro Gordon Campbell and his wife, Guianeya Román, share with us how their wedding served as indirect inspiration for this upcoming performance.

Tickets to this event are for sale at the unbelievable price of 200 pesos each at the TAP box office or online.

Behind the Chamber: The Art of the Horn

Aigul Kulova
Oleana Bogaychuck

You know we are blessed with cultural events here in Mazatlán, but I especially love it when we are privileged to host a world premiere!

Next Sunday, February 8th in Casa Haas, we will hear Brahms’ classic piece for horn, with a companion piece written by Robert Cummings expressly for Maestro Gordon Campbell. Aigul Kulova will be on piano, Oleana Bogaychuck on violin, and Gordon Campbell on the horn. Maestro Gordon Campbell and his wife, Guianeya Román, give us a Behind-the-Chamber look at the upcoming concert.

Performance will be at noon was sold out, and CULTURA was opening a second performance at 6:00 pm. Tickets for this event are only 200 pesos, and can be purchased at the TAP box office or online. Come and listen to Maestro Campbell get out from behind his baton and play, for a change!

Behind the Chamber: Opera La Serva Padrona

Karla Muñoz, soprano
Carlos Serrano, baritone
Larik Huerta, the mute

Do you love good opera as much as I do? Premiering for the Empress of Hapsburg’s birthday in 1733, the opera buffa (comedic opera) “La Serva Padrona” (“The Servant Turned Mistress”) by Pergolesi will be the fourth offering in this year’s Camerata Gordon Campbell.

Originally written as an intermezzo, the theme of “La Serva Padrona” is timeless and something most anyone can relate to. A young woman, working as a maid for a wealthy elderly bachelor, has designs on marrying him and inheriting his estate. She works in cahoots with Vespone, a mute fellow servant, to make her goal a reality.

Greg and I recently interviewed the Director of the Sinfónica Sinaloa de las Artes, Maestro Gordon Campbell, and his wife, Guianeya Román, in our home. Below is their Behind-the-Chamber peek into La Serva Padrona:

The concert will take place at the Angela Peralta Theater this Sunday, February 1st, at noon. Karla Muñoz, soprano, will sing the role of Serpina, the maid. Carlos Serrano, baritone, will sing as Uberto, the master of the house. Actor Larik Huerta will play the mute servant, Vespone. The stage director for this performance is Rodolfo Arriaga.

Tickets for La Serva Padrona are only 200 pesos each, and can be purchased at the TAP box office or online.

Behind the Chamber: Do You Know the Origin of Stereo Music?

 

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A few of the inner balconies in St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice, Italy

Do you know the origin of stereo music? Although “stereo” most commonly refers to a method of music reproduction, and the word “stereophonic” was coined by the Western Electric company in 1927, the origins of stereophonic sounds go way back to the Renaissance.

The first stereophonic music was performed  in the 1500s in St. Mark’s Basilica, when groups of musicians would sing and play from the multiple balconies inside the basilica.

stereophonic derives from the Greek “στερεός” (stereos), “firm, solid” + “φωνή” (phōnē), “sound, tone, voice”

We here in Mazatlán will be privileged to experience such live stereophonic sound inside our own Angela Peralta Theater, as part of the Camerata Gordon Campbell.

Renaissance Stereophonic will take place at noon this next Sunday, January 25, 2015. Below you can hear Maestro Gordon Campbell and his wife and collaborator, Guianeya Román, giving us a Behind-the-Chamber glimpse into this weekend’s event.

Tickets to this event are being sold at the unbelievable price of 200 pesos, at the TAP box office or online. Can you imagine how great our Angela Peralta will sound, filled with music from the balconies, in a surround-sound effect?

 

Behind the Chamber: The Virtuoso Trumpet

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Héctor Tomás Jiménez and his trumpet

You have probably already fallen in love with this season of the Camerata Gordon Campbell. Both Daniela Liberman on piano and Mozart and his Women were terrific. This Sunday, January 18, will be the first Camerata event this year in Casa Haas. The noon performance of “The Virtuoso Trumpet” is already sold out, but there are still tickets available for the 6 pm event.

Héctor Tomás Jiménez, a Mije Indian who grew up learning to play in Oaxaca on a horn donated by US Americans, is one of Mexico’s premier concert trumpeters. The serendipity, that Maestro Gordon Campbell, Director of the Orquesta Sinfónica Sinaloa de las Artes, encouraged a woman to gather instruments for a Oaxaqueñan band that needed them, and, years later, that a musician who learned on one of those donated instruments is playing under Gordon’s baton, is beautiful.

Below is a Behind the Chamber clip about this Sunday’s concert, from an interview Greg and I recently conducted with Maestro Gordon Campbell and his wife and collaborator, Guianeya Román.

Buy your tickets at the Angela Peralta box office or online.