Mexico, Concert, Puebla…

Hi there! I hope you are well and are having a nice weekend. This week was focused on mainly the concert I had Yesterday (Saturday) of Dichterliebe and Tosti songs, finishing up with 2 Mexican songs. Although my main focus was the concert, I managed to see some friends, gave some masterclasses at Escuela Superior de Musica, where I studied my bachelors, and of course rehearse the concert with Sergio Vazquez a wonderful pianist and colleague since many years.

Preparing for the concert has been really nice and getting again near Schumann and Tosti. It has been a really nice experience to play again with Sergio and see how we blend our ideas together, unfortunately, in order to prepare such repertoire requires more than a couple rehearsals. We fortunately managed to run everything well and we both understand musically each other, so for the time we had, we managed to do a lot.  The concert went really well. People came and specially family and friends and some also that share my profession. The whole experience was really nice and intimate as the little space can have 40 ish people. So it was really like a nice “Soire”. Following the concert my mother prepared some very nice small snacks and we served wine. She was in charge of the catering and she did brilliantly and people really appreciated the attention, so very well done, Dona Ariadna. Thank you for all your support as well for all the logistics of the concert.

The Dichterliebe went really well, through all the songs I could convey the emotions and text, it is my mission to make music, not only about the voice but about the message, to really try to interpret and share the truth of each song, based on the text and music, putting it all together and with my voice being able to use it to serve the music not the other way around. The Tosti songs are also really nice and I really enjoyed singing them. Something that was really important to me was for people to be able to understand what I was singing about, so I used something it worked in the past, and instead of a written printed text, to have subtitles projected while singing, so people can follow, for that, thank you very much to our host Francisco Mendez Padilla for doing as well the subtitles. I can not make enough remarks on how important that is, specially to an audience where Lieder and Tosti are so far away from Mexican culture. Many people who attended the concert really, really appreciated that.

The singing part of the concert was not so easy, but I enjoyed. There was so much wind coming from the opened windows and it was somehow really dry as well, so I had to be very focused on breathing whenever I could, through my nose. Also there where some external noise, so acoustically was difficult as well. The windows were opened because otherwise we would melt of the heat in the room so, for the public was really important to have the windows opened. It was a small compromise from my part, although I felt unnecessary pressure because of it, to be honest. When the voice dries, is really hard to produce nice sound, it costs more and the instrument sounds different. However I am glad all went really well and I think people enjoyed the concert. There was even an uncle who came from another city to see the concert and finally I had the chance to meet him in person. So thank you to all of you who came to the concert and allowed me to share with you what I do and to bring some German and Italian music to you. I know is very foreign music to a Mexican, specially if you are not a musician and into Lieder, and for those who came across with it for the first time, I hope you enjoyed discovering new music.

I was also really happy to teach at my Alma Mater to few students. It is always very nice to remember where I come from and to see how students work on their repertoire. It is fascinating to me to discover the person behind the voice, because once you understand how that person perceives, you can find out how to use language to get to them the ideas of singing. Because singing is mechanical but to sing you require beyond mechanics, you require images, the right ideas in your brain to produce the sounds and specially one must work on slowly training the ear and the sensations of the body to understand how really the instrument feels and works. Singing is full of paradoxes which I one day will make a list of the ones I find very strong. Also singing is knowing oneself. Also being vulnerable and opened to criticism is really important. Only by being vulnerable one reaches the raw truth, creativity is born!

Being vulnerable is also something a singer must learn if the want to make people feel during a performance, there cannot be art if there is not vulnerability. You can be a great technician but that does not make you an artist, and you cannot truly interpret. To be the character you are playing you must be real. Unfortunately,  a lot of what is done in this world on the performing arts is superficial, either deliberately or for the lack of skills. However, you persue for the truth must never fade, it can never be neglected if what you want to is really to make music or art, or anything else for that matter. So what I am getting to is that, one must be profound and the search for it never ends.

Now I have just arrived to Puebla, where Tomorrow I will give a 2 day Masterclasses at the Conservatoire. I am really looking forward to it.

I keep doing my exercise routine (4 times per week), reading my Daily Stoic and Tolstoi and continuing with the Biography of Mr. Kunde. 

Take care and see you next week.