Unto us a child is born Villancicos from Latin America
Concerto Scirocco, La Boz Galana
The Concerto Scirocco ensemble, led by bassoonist Giulia Genini, and the vocal ensemble La Boz Galana have selected Christmas music from Latin America: villancicos and ensaladas from 17th-century colonial Mexico, sung in the cathedrals of the New World – in Spanish, Portuguese, Nahuatl and Latin.
Their guiding star is the Guatemalan composer Gaspar Fernández, whose Cancionero – a compilation of 270 pieces – captured the diversity of the Baroque and preserved it for posterity. The music brings together indigenous peoples and Spanish conquerors, African slaves and Sephardic refugees – among other things as shepherds in the Nativity – united in a rhythm that unmistakably embodies the soul of Latin America.
It is not a purely Iberian heritage but a soundscape of cultural exchange: polyphonic, rhythmic and vibrant. For many of the pieces, the concert will be a premiere.
Concerto Scirocco, La Boz Galana
Dir: Giulia Genini
