Something about Copland’s "Hoedown" always brings to mind images of the Midwest, or more specifically Fievel Goes West. I watched that movie so many times when I was a child. It’s probably due to that movie that I love Copland’s music. Hard to believe I was sitting in an amazing amphitheatre on a summer evening in Viña del Mar, Chile, listening to the Orquestra Sinfonica Estudiantil Metropolitana play Copland’s "Hoedown."
The Quinta Vergara, a beautiful park with numerous benches, well-maintained grass, and gorgeous old trees, is nestled in the middle of Viña del Mar. Vergara is the name of one of the extremely old families whose former estate is now a park. Every day the park fills with families, dogs, and the ever-present teenagers making out–I think it may be a radical new form of dental surgery where one uses the tongue to extract the patient’s teeth, but nonetheless, they seem to enjoy it.
Hidden in the back of the park, built into and up a hill, is an amphitheater where they hold concerts. Once you sit down, on the very comfortable concrete seats in the galeria, you can barely hear anything that would indicate you’re in the middle of a city. A police siren maybe would penetrate the silence. Trees surround the amphitheater, and the seats go up the hill behind you, a stage sits in front of you, and huge concrete columns surrounding you support numerous cables stretched over you in a web.
This ring of metal supports the oddest piece of architecture I have ever seen. Imagine something between a spider web and an exploded chandelier. Numerous cables stretch from the columns to a metal ring in the middle. At least three levels of cable are held in place by vertical poles that form three concentric circles until the cables unite in one central pole suspended above the heads of the crowd. I imagine the structure must have something to do with acoustics, which work amazingly well for the outdoor space or perhaps the cables and poles keeps the place from falling apart.
It didn’t stay quiet long, however, and if I had been dead set on some peaceful classical music, I would have been deeply disappointed. "Hoedown" might have been the most relaxing piece they played. They conducted the first half of the concert very professionally, and the students played properly with much decorum.
The second half of the concert was much more interesting as the students began to sway and move together during their songs. Though one my professors assures us that no one dances cueca (the national dance of Chile) any longer–that they think it’s boring–the crowd cheered raucously when the conductor announced that they would play one. They cheered even louder when the students all produced white handkerchiefs and twirled them over their heads whooping loudly (part of the dance) reminding me strongly of the South–think country and cowboy boots. The crowd clapped along enthusiastically with the beat–all cuecas have a heartbeat rhythm. Seems that cultural pride stays the same wherever you go.
Along with that you could feel the crowd perk up when the conductor informed us that we would be coming to South America now (in terms of the composer’s nationality) then sigh audibly when he informed them that the song was from Brazil. After that the students played two mambos in which they got up and danced–the line of French horns shuffling back and forth in front of their chairs, twirling the horns above their heads.
As the music floated up to even the farthest seat, as the sweet smell of chorros (think funnel cake) mixed with the acrid cigarette smoke, and as darkness fell and the stars shone through the web of cables above, the crowd sat entranced for nearly two hours. We clapped so much at the end of the performance that the conductor asked the crowd if we wanted them to play an encore. The crowd responded with yells and whistles, and they treated us to another enthusiastic round of the cueca and the mambo. Once again, Chile had surprised me. The world itself had surprised me, in that it is, at times, so small–the music I used to listen to when watching a children’s cartoon movie had resurfaced in an outdoor concert in Chile.
January 26, 2009
No comments:
Post a Comment