Andean, German, and Austrian Music Highlights KSC Guitar Concert
KEENE, N.H. 11/4/03 - Andean traditional tunes contrast with classical German and Austrian music during a Wednesday, Nov. 19, concert by the Keene State College Guitar Orchestra and Latin American Ensemble. The concert, which also includes flamenco and Cuban music, starts at 7:30 p.m. in the Alumni Recital Hall of the Redfern Arts Center on Brickyard Pond. Tickets are $7 for the general public and $5 for KSC students, senior citizens, and youth age 17 or younger. Call the box office at 603-358-2168.
José Lezcano, professor of music, directs the nine-member KSC Guitar Orchestra and the 24 students in the Latin American Ensemble through separate programs. KSC music faculty member Ted Mann will join the Guitar Orchestra as an ensemble player.
Lezcano arranged two pieces for the Guitar Orchestra: Telemann’s Concerto for two guitars in G major, featuring KSC music students David Ross and Adam Kale as soloists, and Sevillanas, a traditional Spanish flamenco dance. The orchestra also performs a Hindemith rondo for guitars, Schubert’s Six Dances, and Fackler’s Suite Antique in A minor.
The Latin American Ensemble performs traditional music from Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia, some collected by Americo Valencia Chacon, a Peruvian musicologist, and others arranged by Lezcano for panpipes, guitars, charangos, (small 10-string guitars) bombo (drum), chachjas (goat-hoof rattlers), and flutes. Music student Jenny Beauregard, soprano, performs Llorando se fue, composed by Los Kjarkas, a traditional Bolivian group. This song is known as Lambada in a more famous pirated version.
Lezcano, on guitar, joins student flutists Jessica Makris and Chihiro Take, in performing “Guaracha Nevada” from his composition Cuban Sketches.
A Cuban-born guitarist, composer, and folklorist, Lezcano teaches music theory and Latin American music at Keene State. His programs of traditional guitar repertory, original compositions, and Andean music have taken him from Carnegie Recital Hall to major festivals in Quito, Lima, and Rio de Janeiro as a recitalist, collaborative musician, and soloist with orchestra. He has received numerous national prizes and awards, including in 2003 the New Hampshire Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship and the Keene State College’s Award for Distinction in Research and Scholarship in recognition of his activities as performer, scholar, and composer.
