Festive vocal and instrumental music from Colonial Latin America

Voices and instruments bring alive Hispanic Renaissance polyphony from late 16th to early 17th cent. music manuscripts, found in convents of Northwest Guatemala, and vocal and instrumental music from the Peruvian Martinez Comapañón Codex.

The “Latin American mss. Guatemala music manuscripts'' are a collection of vocal works of Spanish and Indigenous Renaissance compositions from c. 1570 to 1635 that were used in the villages of Santa Eulalia, San Juan Ixcoi, and San Mateo Ixtatan in the commune of Huehuetenango in northwest Guatemala. Some works were written by native Mayans, and others were brought by missionaries and are mostly Spanish works. The “Martínez Compañón Codex'', also called the “Trujillo Codex'' is a manuscript that brings together more than 1,400 watercolors and 20 scores, and which was commissioned by Baltasar Martínez Compañón, Bishop of Trujillo between 1780 and 1790. The musical pieces are mostly popular songs and tunes as well as religious songs from northern Peru. While they were mostly composed in European style, many of them show the influence of native rhythms and genres of the Peruvian coast and highlands. The watercolors illustrate the customs and ways of life of northern Peru, showing dances brought there by the native and African populations that lived in this area during the 18th century.

The performers are sopranos Elisa Cordova (New York & Washington DC), and Jayne Segedy (Barcelona, Spain), tenor José Ignacio Lagos (Barcelona, Spain), and baritone and percussionist José Sacín (Washington DC, Peru), with period violinist Edson Scheid (New York), charango, ronroco and viola player Carlos Boltes (Hartford CT, Chile), period harpist Christa Patton (New York), directed by Crescendo’s Founding Artistic Director Christine Gevert on historic keyboards.