{"id":2447130,"date":"2019-08-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-04T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=310553"},"modified":"2019-08-04T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-04T06:00:00","slug":"a-chilean-folk-song-reborn-on-marimba-at-aspen-music-fest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/a-chilean-folk-song-reborn-on-marimba-at-aspen-music-fest\/","title":{"rendered":"A Chilean folk song, reborn on marimba at Aspen Music Fest"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Aspen Percussion Ensemble performs its annual recitla on Monday at Harris Concert Hall.<\/strong>
Aspen Times file<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

During the annual solo percussion competition at the Aspen Music Festival and School, an untrained voice and a passion for Chilean folk song from marimba player Jaime C\u00e1rdenas-Espa\u00f1a won over judges.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of the most unique solo presentations we\u2019ve ever heard,\u201d said percussion program director Jonathan Haas. \u201cNobody had ever heard what he\u2019s doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

C\u00e1rdenas-Espa\u00f1a won the annual competition \u2014 and a spot on Monday night\u2019s Percussion Ensemble program at Harris Concert Hall \u2014 with his transcription of Chilean folk singer Violeta Parra\u2019s weepy \u201cEl Gavil\u00e1n (The Sparrow Hawk)\u201d for marimba, with the percussionist himself singing.<\/p>\n

He grew up with Parra\u2019s music in Punta Arenas, and recently began attempting to bring it into his own percussion work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved this song when I was a kid,\u201d said C\u00e1rdenas-Espa\u00f1a, 29, who is in his fourth summer in Aspen while pursuing a master\u2019s at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. \u201cI thought the harmony was really cool. I can\u2019t play guitar, so I thought I could do it with marimba. I got it down on marimba and I started singing to it, and that was surprising because I didn\u2019t think I could sing. It was a lucky strike, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of pushing him to find a trained singer to accompany him, Haas and Music Fest faculty have encouraged C\u00e1rdenas-Espa\u00f1a to continue singing the piece himself, and to pursue his folk adaptations for voice and percussion.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis singing voice is really equal to his percussion playing,\u201d Haas said. \u201cWe were taken with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s concert also includes one of the world\u2019s most well-known percussion works: George Anthiel\u2019s boundary-pushing \u201cBallet m\u00e9canique,\u201d which originally scored an experimental 1926 film by French Cubist Fernand L\u00e9ger. In its American premiere at Carnegie Hall, Haas noted, the work started a riot because of its noisy and unusual use of industrial tools, airplane propellers, doorbells and four pianos.<\/p>\n

It still has the capacity to shock.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been programming it for 35 years and never has anyone walked away unprovoked why its intention,\u201d Haas said. \u201cIt still hits its mark. You can stir people to think about what they\u2019re listening too.\u201d<\/p>\n

The concert also includes a beloved Aspen soloist, the violinist Jennifer Koh, accompanying the ensemble for a Kati Ag\u00f3cs violin concerto, a performance of Charles Wuorinen\u2019s percussion quartet and a work by Pulitzer Prize winner Julie Wolf, titled \u201cDark Full Ride,\u201d composed entirely for drum set cymbals and hi hats.<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aspen Percussion Ensemble performs its annual recitla on Monday at Harris Concert Hall.Aspen Times file During the annual solo percussion competition at the Aspen Music Festival and School, an untrained voice and a passion for Chilean folk song from marimba player Jaime C\u00e1rdenas-Espa\u00f1a won over judges. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the most unique solo presentations we\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2447130","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-24 10:54:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2447130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2447130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2447130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2447130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}