Santa Fe Music Week: Jazz, Mariachis, Opera, and More

Music lovers can look forward to a week of music in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Jazz, pop, mariachi, opera, country, classical, folk, Latin rock and more! Tunes of all styles and genres will be drifting through the air later this month with Santa Fe Music Week, which returns August 23 through September 2, 2019. 

Attendees will experience 10 days of live music from national headlining artists and local favorites in venues like the Santa Fe Opera, The Lensic Performing Arts Center, the Santa Fe Plaza bandstand, Santa Fe Railyard, restaurants, and bars. Entertainment will be a combination of free and paid performances.

New for 2019, music lovers can pick up a free Santa Fe Music Week lanyard that gets you drink discounts at many of the music venues around town. It also waves any cover charge for live music and has a calendar of events on the back where the lanyard is valid. You can get a free lanyard at any of the Santa Fe Visitor Centers or participating lanyard locations. The lanyard discounts are only valid during Santa Fe Music Week at participating locations.

Lanyard partner locations include Tumbleroot Brewery and Distillery, Meow Wolf, Cowgirl BBQ, Santa Fe Brewing Co., Bar Alto, Eloisa Restaurant, Mine Shaft Tavern, and Violet Crown.

Highlights of Santa Fe Music Week 2019 will include appearances by Grammy Award-winning artists, Ringo Starr, Boz Scaggs and Kacey Musgraves at the Santa Fe Opera. Free mariachi performances will bring culture to life weekdays on the Plaza from 3-4 p.m. and groups including The Red Elvises, Shake Alert, Baracutanga, Stephanie Hatfield and Sim Balkey will take the stage free on the plaza from 5:30-7 p.m. nightly. Additional Music Week highlights include The Platinum Music Awards, the final two performances of the Santa Fe Opera 2019 season, AMP Railyard concerts and the Mariachi Extravaganza.

Additional performers, dates, and ticket pricing information for Santa Fe Music Week is available on the event website. 

This Year's Top Events on the Long Beach Peninsula of Washington

I just returned from a writing trip to Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula. I checked out the newly renovated Shelburne Hotel. There’s always something going on and many reasons to pack your getaway bag for the beach.

Community organized events on Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula, a 28-mile-long beach destination bordered by the Pacific Ocean, the Columbia River and Willapa Bay, offer the opportunity to experience an array of local pastimes and passions. Among them are razor clam digging, coastal gardening, beach running and cultural events.

Top events include the following:

·      Long Beach Razor ClamFestival (April 20-21) resurrects a popular community event of the 1940s as well as a subsistence tradition. Participants can learn from longtime residents how to find, dig and clean razor clams, taste and vote for the best clam chowder, visit with mermaids, enjoy musical entertainment, relax at a beer garden, enter contests, and more.

·      Beach to Chowder (June 16) run/walk, with a start and finish at the “World’s Long Beach Arch” on Bolstad Avenue, Long Beach, is an ideal way to engage the entire family (dogs permitted on leash) in a fun event over Father’s Day weekend. Local and visiting competitors in 5K and 10K distances run or walk for fun and prizes along a flat stretch of hard-pack sand. Steaming bowls of chowder are enjoyed afterwards during the awards ceremony.

·      Music in the Gardens (July 21) showcases a variety of lovingly tended, magnificent, coastal gardens up and down the peninsula. Hosts welcome ticketed tour goers with garden insights, plant identification and light refreshments, while regional musicians entertain. 

·      Water Music Festival (Oct. 12-14) brings classical musicians to perform at intimate and interesting venues on the Long Beach Peninsula. Many of the attendees are local residents who appreciate world-class chamber music performances brought by the Water Music Society to their remote locale.

·      6x6 Art Show and Auction (Nov. 3) offers a glimpse into the thriving local art scene. Fantastic art objects produced by the region’s most talented artists are auctioned off as a benefit for the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum’s exhibition programs. 

The Long Beach Peninsula is host to more than 50 annual events. For event details, destination information and trip planning, please call the Long Beach Peninsula Visitors Bureau at 360.642.2400 or access www.visitlongbeachpeninsula.com to download the 2018 event calendar directly.

Information Courtesy: Long Beach Peninsula Visitors Bureau

-->

If you love music, you'll love Santa Fe: 2014 Music Scene Calendar of Events

From local music and world-class opera to chamber music and national performers, there is music everywhere in Santa Fe.

Santa Fe’s music scene could not be more diverse, especially in the summer when all of the city’s stages are filled with performers from around the world. The city is a crossroads of creativity and its musical heritage is as old as Santa Fe’s founding more than 400 years ago and as fresh as tomorrow. 

In addition to prolific talent in Santa Fe, there are new and ever more popular venues including the spacious green grass at the Downs of Santa Fe, the cozy Santa Fe Railyard Plaza, the indoor/outdoor performance space at Santa Fe Sol and the Bandstand on the Santa Fe Plaza in historic downtown. Add to these the spectacular Santa Fe Opera amphitheater, the intimate St. Francis Auditorium, the outstanding acoustics and site lines at the Lensic Performing Arts Center and the city’s many bars and restaurants featuring music. 

Here is some of what the summer holds for visiting music lovers: 

Santa Fe Bandstand, June 23-August 28: Free performances every Monday through Thursday evening, and some Fridays, by local, national and international acts, outside on the Santa Fe Plaza. Upcoming shows include Grammy award winning artist Terrance Simien, June 23, 2014 SXSW’s Best Roots Rock Band, the Wheeler Brothers, June 24, from Texas the Tejas Brothers, July 7, as part of a lineup that includes more than 90 musical acts. A plaza venue on Santa Fe’s south side will feature even more music in July and August. http://santafebandstand.org/

 

The Santa Fe Opera, June 26-August 23: Now in its 57^th year, the opera’s summer season brings the best of the world’s opera performers and production talent to Santa Fe. For 2014 the five productions are Bizet’s archetypical love story Carmen, one of the great Italian comic opera’s Donizetti’s Don Pasqule, Beethoven’s only opera Fidelio, a double bill of two shorter operas, The Impresario and Le Rossignol, and the American premier of Dr. Su Yat-Sen. http://www.santafeopera.org.

Heath Concerts, July 7-August 25: A series of concerts held at several popular venues and featuring performers like Michael Franti & Spearhead’s Soulshien, July 5 at the Downs of Santa Fe, Ray Lamontagne, August 5 at the Downs, Lila Downs August 27 at the Lensic Perform Art Center and Violent Femmes September 11 at the Santa Fe Convention Center. http://www.heathconcerts.org/

Music on the Hill, July: Held on the lush lawn at St. John’s College this is a delightful evening music series featuring internationally acclaimed jazz vocalist Annie Sellick- July 9, the five-part harmonized arrangements of Charlie Parker’s  best loved solos as performed by SuperSax New Mexico-July 16, and the high-energy nuevo latino sound of Manzanares-July 23. http://www.sjc.edu/events-and-programs/santa-fe/music-on-the-hill-2014/

 

Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, July 20-August 25: Legendary cellist Pablo Casals was the festival’s first honorary president in 1973. Since then the music festival has grown from hosting 14 musicians performing Sunday concerts to more than 80 artists perform over 6 weeks. Schedule highlights include a “Breaking Bach” piano recital-7/26, performances by the Orion String Quartet-7/30-31, New Music with Flux Quartet-8/8, Mark O’Connor String Quartet-8/22 and concerts featuring works by the masters of classical music. https://www.santafechambermusic.com/

 

Santa Fe Railyard, July-August: Throughout the summer the Railyard will host a number of jam sessions at Warehouse 21, open mike nights, and three American singer songwriters: Bonnie Prince Billy, July 13, James McMurty, August 2 and Janiva Magness August 9. http://www.railyardsantafe.com/

 

Santa Fe Sol Stage & Grill: July-August: One of Santa Fe’s favorites, the Red Elvises, performs on July 10 followed by Anthony Leon & The Chain on July 20. In August The Hold Steady takes to the patio on August 6 and AKE Street Dive performs on August 10. http://www.solofsantafe.com/

 

Performance Santa Fe, July-August: The Festival of Song features four vocal recitals with stars from The Santa Fe Opera: Alek Sharder, tenor, and Daniela Mack, mezzo-sproano July 31; Corinne Winters, soprano, August 3; Paul Grove, tenor, August 8; and Brenda Rae, soprano, August 10. All performances held at St. John United Methodist Church. The 2014-15 Season Opening Orchestral Concert will be held at the Lensic Performing Arts Center on August 31. https://performancesantafe.org/  

Listen to who’s performing locally, see where to go, and build a personalized Santa Fe Music Lineup at Tune In To Santa Fe. 

For a full list of what’s happening in the city and to find out everything about Santa Fe, please visit www.santafe.org

Photography copyright: Elizabeth R. Rose

Tortoise shells and gourds: Guatemalan music in the Mayan tradition

Museum docent demonstrating an early marimba

In the Western Highlands of Guatemala there is a coffee plantation and cultural center that many enjoy visiting. Finca La Azotea is located near Antigua, Guatemala, just a couple of kilometers away. Within the plantation is a fascinating museum that chronicles the development of Mayan musical instruments

You can take a guided tour (recommended) of the farm and learn how coffee is processed. But what I found fascinating was the "Casa K'ojom" (Museum of Mayan Music) where you will find examples of Mayan musical instruments and exhibits showing their development. The pre-Columbian instruments, surprisingly, are very similar to the instruments you will see as musicians play on the streets of Antigua for tourists today.

You'll see percussion instruments, drums and maracas, made of wood and of tortoise shell. The marimba is considered typical of Guatemala, also having roots in the Mayan civilization. The marimba is  made of wooden bars that are struck with mallets. Tubular or gourd resonators hang down from each of the bars and provide the mellow tones the marimba is known for. The original version was carried by two people and did not have the stand that is typical today.

Mayan musical instruments were developed as part of the ceremonial life of the Maya. Images of people using the instruments can be seen in pre-Columbian stone carvings

Playing on the streets of Antigua using traditional instruments

Today, on the streets of Guatemalan cities like Antigua, you'll often see small troupes playing traditional music using instruments that are not unlike the instruments of their ancestors. 

We enjoyed the colorful streets of Antigua. One day, near the Santa Catalina Arch in historic Antigua, excitement built as a family set up their instruments to play for the visitors.

There was a traditional marimba with gourd resonators and one of the men had a tortoise shell instrument just like those we had seen in the museum. Once they set up their drums and flutes, Maya Kaqchikel was ready to perform. The Kaqchikel are one of the indigenous Maya peoples of the midwestern highlands and this group of musicians was from that area.

Tortoise shells as percussion instruments

The person who stole the show and gathered the crowds that day was the very young boy, Carlitos,  who danced in his sandals on the cobblestone street playing maracas. The music was excellent and Maya Kaqchikel sold quite a few CDs.

When you encounter musicians in Guatemala, be sure and have a look at their instruments. You may be looking at the same type of instrument that was played back in pre-Columbian times and that was part of Mayan ritual life.

More Information

 

Coffee Plantation Address: Calle del Cementerio, Final | Jocotenango, Sacatepéquez, Antigua, Guatemala

Museums of the Antigua Guatemala area

Photography copyright: Elizabeth Rose Photography