The sonorities of France and Mexico perfume the air the last day of summer, when Canadian soprano Renée Bouthot and Mexican-American pianist Ana Cervantes, in her Canadian debut, join forces in concert. Their performance, Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir: Music by French and Mexican Composers.
Soprano Renée Bouthot has sung in opera, music theatre, and concert across Canada and in Mexico. For the past several years she has appeared in chamber music concerts, championing the works of Canadian composers Milton Barnes and Srul Irving Glick, in particular.
Pianist Ana Cervantes is praised by critics for her “commanding intensity” (MusicWeb International, UK) and “great interpretive qualities” (unomásuno, México); and as “ambassadress for the music of Mexico” (Independent on Sunday, UK).
Their recital features vocal and piano works by Claude Debussy and Francis Poulenc, and contemporary Mexicans Federico Ibarra and Horacio Uribe – offering a mix of impressionistic music, evocative and surrealist poetry, and Mexican colour. The Mexican works will be heard in their Canadian premieres. The recital is a prelude to their appearances in October at the International Cervantino Festival in Guanajuato, the colonial city in central Mexico where the two musicians first met.
Program
Claude Debussy: Fêtes Galantes (1891), (poetry: Paul Verlaine)
Federico Ibarra: Tres Canciones (1998), (poetry: Federico García Lorca)
Debussy: From Préludes (1905-1910) – Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir
From Études (1915) – 1. Pour les cinq doigts, d’après M. Czerny (for the five fingers, after Mr. Czerny); 12. Pour les accords (for the chords)
Horacio Uribe: From Canto de la Monarca: Mujeres en México / Song of the Monarch: Women in Mexico (commissioned by Ana Cervantes) – El Viaje nocturno de Quetzalpapálotl / The Night Voyage of Quetzalpapalotl
Francis Poulenc: Tel jour, telle nuit (1937), (poetry: Paul Éluard)
Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir: Music by French and Mexican Composers, takes place Sunday, September 22, 2pm at the Heliconian Hall, 35 Hazelton Avenue, Toronto. Tickets $25 and concert details are available online.
