Bach is back and big at border festival
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20040416-9...
Classical concert, jazz, opera and lecture scheduled
By Sandra Dibble
April 16, 2004
TIJUANA ? Here, on a quiet hilltop overlooking the international border, a converted schoolhouse soon will ring out with cantatas and preludes,
concertos and sonatas composed more than three centuries ago by Johann Sebastian Bach.
The occasion is the city's first festival honoring the German composer, who died in 1750. Starting Saturday and continuing through April 24, Tijuana's
Casa de la Cultura will be the setting for the Tijuana Bach Festival, a week of events that include classical concerts, a jazz performance, an opera,
an art exhibit and a lecture about Bach's influence on electronic music.
"It's not just Bach, it's Bach Tijuana," said Armando Pesqueira, the festival's 36-year-old director. "It says that Tijuana is a city where cultural
events are growing, that it has a lot more to offer than people usually think."
Pesqueira is part of an expanding circle of Tijuana-born musicians who studied abroad and now are striving to expand the city's classical music
offerings. Jose Medina, a tenor, has spearheaded opera productions that each year pack Tijuana's Cultural Center. Pablo Varela, a conductor, has
brought musicians from Italy to perform as soloists and is working to build a symphony orchestra.
Bach was the ideal choice for a festival for a number of reasons, Pesqueira said. "Bach is great, his art is still very fresh and vibrant. He has a
vast repertoire, and for some reason composers and new artists still take his art more than that of any other composer and some way transform it into
their own aesthetic."
The festival will showcase both local and out-of-town performers. The Baja California Orchestra will open the festival together with Tijuana's Sacre
Cordi Jesus chorus, performing two Bach cantatas. Tijuana's guitar quartet, Esplandian, will play selections by the baroque composer, and Bostich, a
well-known Nortec musician, will deliver a lecture about Bach and electronic music.
But the festival will also highlight works of other composers and artists from out of town. Jimena Gimenez, a cellist from Mexico City, will perform
contemporary works by composers from Mexico, Japan and Great Britain; the Westwind Brass, a San Diego-based quintet, will play pieces by Dizzy
Gillespie and Paquito D'Rivera.
One night will be devoted to the comic opera "La Serva Padrona," by the 18th-century Italian composer G.B. Pergolesi, with Medina as stage director
and Pesqueira as musical director.
Sponsors include Tijuana's Municipal Institute of Art and Culture, the Baja California Institute of Culture, Tijuana's federal Cultural Center,
Mexico's National Institute for Fine Arts and the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana.
All concerts are at La Casa de la Cultura, above downtown Tijuana at Calle Par?s y Lisboa No. 5 in Colonia Altamira. Tickets cost $15 to $20 and are
available at the door. They can also be purchased ahead of time in Tijuana. For details and a complete listing of festival events, go to: http://www.festivalbachtijuana.org
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