Music of the Americas: Through the Centuries

Monday, November 28, 10 am

Peruvian guitarist Pierre Ferreyra lives in Brooklyn. He studied with Michael Newman at Mannes and with Sharon Isbin at the Juilliard School.

He sent us two videos: the first includes three Minuets by Pedro Ximenes de Abrill Tirado, the leading Peruvian composer in the early 19th century. In 1844, he published a collection of 100 Minuets in Paris. 

Tuesday, November 29, 10 am

Singers Guadalupe González Táboas and Laura Princic founded Palo Blanco and released their debut album in 2001, with the participation of leading figures in Argentine folk music. A year later, they won the award for vocal group at the Festival de Cosquín, after which they were joined by guitarist Roberto Almeida. With the guitarist, they recorded Dos in 2004 and started exploring previously unreleased songs by legendary composer Cuchi Leguizamón, releasing Cuchi inédito y recóndito, a project that included musicians including Jaques Morelenbaum, Chacho Echenique, and Nadia Larcher, among others. This research, a major contribution to Argentine folk music, is the basis of Almeida's doctoral thesis. 

From Leguizamón's rare compositions, they sent us "Zamba de la sirena," which they recorded in Buenos Aires. 

Wednesday, November 30, 10 am

The second video by Pierre Ferreyra Mansilla features the Allegro from Antón Garcia Abril's Evocaciones. García Abril (1933–2021) was a Spanish composer who wrote for the concert hall and films. Evocaciones is a five-movement suite written as an homage to Andrés Segovia in 1981.

Thursday, December 1

Our early music series GEMAS, produced in collaboration with Gotham Early Music Scene and co-curated by soprano Nell Snaidas and Americas Society Music Director Sebastian Zubieta, celebrates its 10th anniversary this season. For the closing concert of the first GEMAS series in 2013, Meridionalis teamed up with The Clarion Society in a concert of music written in the Jesuit missions of eastern Bolivia which took place at Columbia University's beautiful St. Paul's Chapel.

From that concert, we share Domenico Zipoli's Beatus vir, featuring Bolivian soprano Katia Escalera, a specialist in the mission repertoire. Read about that concert here. 

The MetLife Foundation Music of the Americas concert series is made possible by the generous support of Presenting Sponsor MetLife Foundation.

The Fall 2022 Music program is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and by the Howard Gilman Foundation. 

Additional support comes from the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, The Amphion Foundation, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, New Music USA’s Organizational Development Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Association of Performing Arts Professionals’ ArtsForward program, made possible through support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and The Augustine Foundation.