Chora Nova, a 50-voice Berkeley-based chorus, continues the inaugural season of Artistic Director John Kendall Bailey with a concert featuring Ariel Ramírez’s Misa Criolla and sacred choral music from Spain and Latin America at First Church Berkeley UCC (also known as First Congregational Church). The concert is at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 15.
The concert examines the connection between Western classical music and the indigenous music of Latin American countries. With the music of Tomás Luis de Victoria, representing the highest point of Spanish Renaissance sacred vocal polyphony, as a point of departure, we see how the Spanish colonization of Mesoamerica and South America brought this style of music into contact with the language and music of the Incas and Aztecs. One piece on the program, Hanacpachap Cussicuinin, is in Quechua, and another, Tleycantimo choquiliya, is sung in a mixture of Spanish and Nahuatl. This combination of musical styles and cultures is felt generations later, as we also present Ariel Ramírez's popular Misa Criolla, written in the 1960s, but similarly combining sacred liturgy (the Catholic mass) with folk music - in this case, the dance music of Argentina. Also featuring more recent works by Pablo Casals and Miguel del Aguila, this program highlights old and new music that shares a common history -- music that deserves to be enjoyed and celebrated.