On August 29, I will be joining my longtime friend, fabulous cellist Ian Maksin and the trio Guitarra Azul at the City Winery in Chicago..
Ian and I have known each other for many years, and I have admired his musicianship, his musical taste and his dedication since the day I first heard him play with the New World Symphony in Miami Beach. Several years have gone by since that day, during which we have solidified our friendship and the idea of collaborating came about. A couple of years ago, while on a tour in South Florida, he invited me to be a guest artist on one of his concerts.. It was an amazing experience, one I'm always excited to repeat...and so we have. Many times we spoke about how cool it would be for me to go to Chicago to perform...well here it is!
I am sure this will be a beautiful and fun concert, like everything Ian is involved with, so I want to make sure that all of you, who are in the area, join us on August 29 ....hope to see you there!!
For more information please visit the City Winery site:
On May 26th I was invited to be part of a beautiful celebration for Networking Hispanos, at The Arts Garage in Delray Beach, Fl. What was supposed to be just some entertainment for the audience, ended up being a beautiful recital experience! As always, blessed by the best musicians I can dream of, I had Jose Luis Rodriguez (guitar) and Reza Filsoofi (percussion), with me.. We played and enjoyed ourselves sharing our love for beautiful music with a very attentive and warm audience..What an audience! Would love to perform again for that bunch of sweet people very soon!
Some pictures by fabulous Amy Pasquantonio..
Reza Filsoofi (percussion) and Jose Luis Rodriguez (guitar)
With Reza and Jose Luis..
With one of the artists who exhibited her work that evening, Maria del Pilar Vargas and her husband Eduardo... the sweetest people.
A very exciting project I've been involved with this past year, is 'Of Essence and Time'. A concert I co-created and co-produced with guitarist/composer Jose Luis Rodriguez and dancer/choreographer Niurca Marquez..
“Of Essence
and Time” was commissioned by Next@19th in October 2012. It's a concert in which we were looking to expand the traditional aesthetic and authenticity of Jewish culture present around the
world, without loosing its essence, and in this case, with a special interest in the Sephardic
culture.
This concert
feeds of common elements in the Andalusian and Sephardic musical traditions, transforming
and shaping them in order to create a sound and visual universe, which is an
important part of our musical life experience.
This aesthetic,
riding along between contemporary flamenco, traditional Sephardic and popular Andalusian music and the Mediterranean elements, creates a new and
particular sound that results in “Of Essence and Time”...
Enjoy the pictures and the video..
Reza Filsoofi (percussion and setar), Renyel Rivero (bass), Romulo Bernal (percussion) and Federico Britos (violin)
Niurca Marquez (dancer and choreographer)
Jose Luis Rodriguez (guitar and compositions)
Thanks to Stephen Malagodi who came to the concert and took the time to write a review.... here is what he wrote..
Superlative restraint. Now that's something we really appreciate
in South Florida, right?
Friday's concert of Nu Flamenco [hey, this isn't hip-hop, let's
spell Nuevo correctly!] at the Dade County Auditorium was indeed superlative,
and made so by its intelligent restraint.
With compositions by Flamenco guitarist Jose Luis Rodriguez
(Spain), Flamenco dance by Niurca Marquez (USA/Cuba), and singing by Susana
Behar (Cuba/Venezula), it was definitely Flamenco. Of course Flamenco is a
cultural form loaded, often overloaded, with Mediterranean melodrama, and
melodrama is something I can always do without, particularly if it's supposed
to be music. But the principals never went over the top. Behar delivered the
songs, which in Spanish must have revolved around love, longing and exile,
freedom and death, etcetera, without weeping all over the place. We got the
poignancy without the puddles. Her voice was clear, comfortable and solid ;
always in range without any sense of strain. While I am in no way qualified or
even capable of saying anything about dance, Niurca Marquez gave us dance not
drama. Stern-faced but not tragic, arms articulate but not flailing, the timing
of her percussive footwork, particularly on the opening duet with Rodriguez,
was perfect, at least to my ears.
I think a lot of the success of this anti-Nu, Nuevo Flamenco has
to be credited to the composition of Jose Luis Rodriguez. The massive talents
of Britos and Filsoofi seemed intentionally constrained to the compositions,
which allowed the deliberate structure of the music to work. If the composition
itself were not so well crafted, or if the individual musicians were allowed to
run free, the whole thing would have been a mess. As it was, it produced a
music that was exactly what its marquis declared, the historical Essence of
great and varied peoples and the rhythmic Time of their cultures, together.
Which leads me to my one complaint which really isn't
a complaint at all. On that stage were some amazing, masterful musicians.
Rodriguez on guitar is absolutely world-class. When he plays the notes just fall
out of his guitar. The most intricate runs and arpeggios seem to materialize
out of sound itself, with no apparent effort
