Tag Archives: chamber music

Behind the Scenes of the 9th Temporada Campbell

CARTELERA-768x768

The 9th Temporada Gordon Campbell brings us loads of live music with first-rate global performers. Concerts are generally at noon on Sundays in Mazatlán’s gorgeously restored, historic Angela Peralta Theater.

Error
This video doesn’t exist

As usual, Maestro Campbell and his wife, Guianeya Román, joined me to give the VidaMaz.com community a “behind the scenes” peak into each concert this season. You can enjoy their commentaries in the short videos below.

Bach’s Magnificat, Sunday January 12, 2020 at noon in the TAP
This next Sunday in the Angela Peralta Theater you can enjoy Bach’s “Magnificat” as sung by the Culiacán Community Chorus with a solo performed by the marvelous tenor from Mexico City, Leonardo Villeda. We are privileged to have Leonardo perform here. In addition to his voice talent, he is director of the well regarded Ad Hominem Chorus in the capital. He and Gordon are such good friends that his 150 person chorus sang at Gordon and Guia’s 50-person wedding! Hear this behind-the-scenes story in the video below.

The soprano will be Perla Orrantia, and second soprano Jessica Toledo, the nineteen year old who started singing with the chorus as a ten-year-old girl. We are so blessed in Mazatlán to watch terrifically talented singers of international caliber grow up before our eyes and in our ears! Susan Sanga will be the mezzo—first time as a soloist in Mexico. Baritone Alejandro Hernandez, soloist in the cathedral concert recently, will also sing.

Mozart and His Women, Sunday 19 January, 2020 at noon in the TAP
The letters between Mozart, his wife, daughter, sister and friends are harvested to create this highly innovative, heart-touching show that provides the story behind some of the best music he composed. Narrated by Angelica Aragón (daughter of local music and film legend Ferrusquilla) while the Camerata Campbell plays, and featuring soprano Perla Orrantia. Below Gordon and his wife, Guia, share the story.

American Quartet by Dvořák, Sunday 26 January, 2020 at noon in the TAP
Antonín Dvořák wrote this piece in 1893 while he was director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York—while spending the summer in, of all places, Spillville, Iowa. In Spillville, Dvořák found an active Czech immigrant community in which he was able to speak his native language and enjoy the feel of home. He finished the chamber piece in less than a month. According to music critic Betsy Schwarm, the composer set out to capture “the spirit of America music in its melodic flow and harmonic construction.” The Marketo String Quartet returns to Mazatlán to perform the four string movements.

Mozart’s Gran Partita, Sunday 2 February, 2020 at noon and 5 pm in Casa Haas
The Sinfonietta Philomúsica Juventus, a group of young people in Culiacán who have asked Maestro Campbell to direct a youth orchestra in addition to the adult Camerata Campbell. Many of them are children or students of the musicians in the camera. In this program 13 wind players will perform Mozart’s best wind music, Serenade No. 10.

Corky Siegel Sings the Blues, Sunday 9 February, 2020 at noon in the TAP
Mazatlán’s beloved, international acclaimed, Corky Siegel returns, playing harmonica and piano while he sings the blues! What a treat this will be! The maestro promises that Corky is living proof leprechauns exist.

3 Centuries of Chamber Music, Sunday 16 Feb, 2020 at noon and 5 pm in Casa Haas
The talented string musicians of the new Sinfonietta Philamúsica Juventus join us this time for the group’s second performance during this 9th Season Gordon Campbell. They will play more than three centuries of music, starting with Renaissance music through 20th century sounds. Gordon’s introduction of the concert below:

The post-Carnaval portion fo the season will include three performances in March, including the Maestro’s personal favorite: his first time ever performance with his son!

Father & Son: Gordon & Alexander Campbell, Sunday 1 Mar, 2020 at noon in the TAP
It was a huge pleasure to meet Gordon’s long-lost and very talented son, and to see the love and joy between these two men now that they are reconnected. I for one can not wait for this concert!

Please forgive the fuzziness of the video; perhaps my concussion is still playing with my brain. I do think the stories are very worth the listen.

The Romantic Music of America, Sunday March 8 at noon in the TAP
The Rondalla will return to their welcoming Mazatlecan crowd

Looking Out for Number 1, Sunday March 15 at noon in the TAP
For the final concert of the 2020 season we will enjoy the young piano prodigy, Hermann Valdez Fregoso, with both the adult Camerata Campbell and the youth orchestra, playing Beethovens Symphony No. 1 and Piano Concerto No. 1.

Buy your tickets at the Angela Peralta box office, either for individual performances or with terrific discounts on season tickets. The Camerata and the Youth Orchestra (this latter completely volunteer) are labors of love. Your donations to support the musical mission are gratefully accepted and are tax deductible.

Behind the Chamber 2017: Four-Note Opera

 

Concert director Gordon Campbell
Stage manager Marcela Beltrán
Soprano Arizbe Barrera
Pianist Aldo Tercero
Mezzosoprano Isis Nefer
Tenor Héctor Coyol Muñoz
Baritone José Manuel González Caro

The eighth and final concert in this year’s 2017 Temporada Campbell will be held on Sunday, March 12, 2017 at noon  in the Angela Peralta Theater.

I interviewed Maestro Gordon Campbell and Guianeya Román in a sneak peek of the concert. To hear their “Behind the Chamber” interview about the performance click on the video below. Please note the video was created before a date change in the program; the date shown in the video is incorrect.

You can purchase your tickets for specific concerts (300 pesos each) or a series pass (2000 pesos) at the Angela Peralta Theater box office—open 9am-3pm and 5-7pm—or online at CULTURA Mazatlán.

15442147_1229524153781300_656067471523188239_n

Support the Camerata
Tax-deductible donations to recover costs of the Camerata and the community chorus are received by the Patronato Philomusica AC, Banco Bajio account number 14166839. Your donation is tax-deductible in Mexico and worldwide. Please help support the high caliber of arts in our community by pledging generously!

To watch other Behind-the-Chamber interviews click here.

Behind the Chamber 2017: Gala Handel

coro

Every winter in Mazatlán we are privileged to enjoy a series of innovative chamber concerts on Sundays at noon. The Campbell Chamber, or Camerata Campbell, was formed in 2012, and its repertoire is based on classical and baroque music. It is an independent project supported by CULTURA Mazatlán, Instituto Sinaloense de Cultura, Proyecto Centro Histórico Mazatlán, our two local hotel associations, as well as the local and foreign communities.

This year’s season will take place January 15 through March 5, 2017. Usually the concerts are held in the Angela Peralta Theater, but twice this season Carnavál events will dictate that the concerts take place in Casa Haas. You can purchase your tickets for specific concerts (300 pesos each) or a series pass (2000 pesos) at the Angela Peralta Theater box office—open 9am-3pm and 5-7pm—or online at CULTURA Mazatlán.

15442147_1229524153781300_656067471523188239_n

In 2015 we published a series of “Behind the Chamber” interviews with Gordon and his wife and collaborator, Guianeya Román. So many of you told us how delightful and helpful those sneak peeks were that we have reprised the interviews again this season.

January 15, 2017 is the first concert in the annual series, at noon in the Angela Peralta Theater. Entitled “Gala Handel,” the concert will feature the full Community Chorus of Culiacán as well as baritone José Manuel González Caro. The choir has never before opened the Campbell Season, so be sure not to miss it. Piano, concertino, violin, viola, cello, bass, trumpets, oboe, timpani and clavecin will accompany the singers. Would you like to hear the Maestro’s “sneak peek” about the performance? Listen up:

Support the Camerata
Tax-deductible donations to recover costs of the Camerata and the community chorus are received by the Patronato Philomusica AC, Banco Bajio account number 14166839. Your donation is tax-deductible in Mexico and worldwide. Please help support the high caliber of arts in our community by pledging generously!

Maestro Gordon Campbell
Director of our state symphony, the Orquesta Sinfónica Sinaloa de las Artes, Maestro Gordon Campbell was born in Youngstown, Ohio. Most of his life he has played the coronet professionally, and he directed orchestras in Paraguay, Uruguay and the USA in addition to Mexico. His multicultural experience has lead Gordon to produce innovative programming with a fusion of influences, blending classical and baroque music with Big Band, mariachi, tango, danzón, and the sounds of Paquito d’Rivera, Arturo Sandoval, the Beatles, Queen, Ferrusquilla and Pedro Infante.

gordon

Maestro Gordon Campbell

Gordon received Mexico’s most prestigious classical music award—the Mozart Media—in 2007, awarded to him at the Palacio Nacional de Bellas Artes in 2007 by the Austrian Ambassador. Twice his orchestras have been invited to perform at the internationally respected Festival Internacional Cervantino in Guanajuato: once with the Aguascalientes state orchestra in 1997, and again with the Sinaloa state orchestra in 2012.

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!