Program #102, May 2 2002: Music of Mexico.

Just in time for Cinco de Mayo, we listened to music by some of Mexico's finest native and adoptive composers. This show reminded me just how much I look doing geographically defined programs -- they afford the opportunity to pull in multiple styles of composition, and this one was no exception.

I concentrated on older material from some of the Bigger Names in Mexican music for the first couple of hours, spending a little time in the first hour reflecting on Mexican music in the context of the drive toward nationally oriented forms of musical expression in the first third (or so) of the twentieth century; in the second hour, I focused on the work and career of Silvestre Revueltas. The uses of modernism in Mexican music of this period came up for specific examination as well. During the last part of the program, I looked at (generally) more experimental work by a variety of composers -- including the first Prisms appearance by Julio Estrada, someone I've been trying to work into the show for a long time. I just wish recordings of his music were a little easier to find!