Musical Interludes - Auditorio Infanta Lenora and Los Abrigos

Bus Route: 843[Los Cristianos, Las Americas] to Los Cristianos.

Return: 843[El Medano]

Translation below

We have been to the Auditorio Infanta Leonor before for the New Year Concert except that, at the time, I thought it was the back way in to the Cultural Centre! Like the MagMa centre in Adeje the Auditorio is striving to put on a wide variety of performances on a virtually weekly basis at only €10.00 per ticket. Whilst I was in town on Thursday I noted that they were presenting a piano recital which I thought might be interesting. On Friday evening I decided to go and popped out for the 843 at 19:05 which would get me there in ample time to purchase a ticket. This is the first time I have panicked when the bus did not arrive on time as it was 15 minutes late. Fortunately the bus 'station' is just up the road so I was able to purchase my ticket with about 7 minutes to spare. 

The concert itself was entertaining in a 'dark' sort of way. I don't know who decided the program but I found that although Humberto Quagliat's playing and interpretation was magnificent there was no light and shade to the pieces chosen. At €10.00 (£8.50) for a ticket one cannot complain as it allows discovery which is something unaffordable in the UK. By contrast their next presentation on the 31^st March is 'Cambuyon' billed as dance, tap, hip-hop, body percussion, singing and music which I am looking forward to. It may be similar to 'Stomp' in the UK if you have ever seen one of their productions.

The performance ended at 21:45 so I had time for a quick coffee and cake in the outdoor cafe before catching the 22:00 843 back to Los Abrigos which, sod's law' arrived on time so I nearly missed it! Arriving back in Los Abrigos the 'Note de Caffe' was in full swing with a second visit of 'Pureza', the Flamenco duo, whom I wrote about last Friday. So for the cost of a rum & coke €3.50 the entertainment continued until late into the night. This nicely leads me on to Saturday evening 924^th) at the same venue where 'Roy Rodriguez' entertained us with a mix of Flamenco Blues. As he was singing in Spanish it was difficult to tell exactly what his influences are but it proved very entertaining until midnight when the proceedings came to an abrupt halt due to a 'licensing' misunderstanding. I hope that this does not prove to be an insurmountable problem as it has been a popular decision to provide such entrainment in the village. 

Talking of which a giant poster has appeared for 'Oxigénate 2012' organised by the Abona Municipality there is a fortnight of activities and entertainment for all ages. Taking place around the area are organised games and shows for the children, pop concerts (one of them being a 'Beatles' tribute band in the plaza at El Medano) and even open air film shows. The first one is, you guessed it, on 31^st March in the Los Abrigos village square at 21:30 ho hum!

I have had conversations with several people over the past couple of weeks who have thought that what I am doing is a good idea because people find it very difficult to know what is going on. I am toying with the idea of putting all of the events I know of in a monthly blog, slightly off my original idea and may prove to difficult and will certainly not be definitive or guaranteed (very rarely hear when things are cancelled) but I may give it a go. The events I go to and record are likely to be repeated annually although the dates may change due to Easter etc. 

Added some pictures to the Los Abrigos album of a canoe/kayak expedition which set sail from the beach this morning (Saturday 24th).

View my 'Los Abrigos' Photo Album

Clocks go forward tonight!!!!!!

Translation of the personal summary on the back page of the programme:

When in August 1976 Humberto Quaglia arrived in Spain from Santiago, Uruguayan pianist  to Compostela Cursosde Music, had just turned 21 years: speech born in Montevideo on July 16, 1955. Delia Fuealumno Martini, Hugo Balzo, Nybia Marino and Fanny Ingold. As is characteristic of any discipline buenosalumnos, tiernpo and place, Quagliata was not limited to learning how to better take notes, but dive into the experience of their teachers. Marino Nybia transmitting that had accumulated in their contact with Claudio Arrau, as this would speak to her of his teacher Martin Krause, and this letransmitiera to Arrau his experience with the great Franz Liszt. Meanwhile, Hugo Balzo had personally known and worked with composers like Khachaturian, Ravel, Stravinsky, Falla and Casella, with director Erich Kleiber, with masters of the keyboard as Wanda Landowska, Robert Casadesus, Alfred Cortot, Marguerite Long and Ricardo Spanish Vines and Jose Iturbi. He impressed the young baggage Quagliata, ultimately also a musician and student of piano before. Masters of their teachers, either in Europe or in classes given to magistrates in his footsteps by Montevideo and Buenos Aires, had been also Arthur Rubinstein, Marcel Ciampi, Nat Ives, Lazare Levy and Edwin Fischer.
 The other defining characteristic of Quagliata is inextricably linked to the above: it is his dedication to contemporary music, especially the Spanish. Quagliata, since his teens, was drawn to Spain and the music espahola who thence could.His international career takes him regularly to major venues around the world, at a rate of about one hundred concerts! savings. ElAuditorio Carnegie Hall and the UN in New York, the Hall of the Americas in Washington, the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Brasilia National Theatre, the Art Gallery of Viceregal Mexico, the Chuo Kaikan Hall in Tokyo, the Theatre of Champs Elysees of Pan's, la Suisse Romande in Geneva, the Gulbenkian Foundation of Lisbon, the Philharmonic Orchestras of Leningrad and Sofia, the Association of Composers in Moscow, the center of Contemporary Art in Warsaw, the Academa Chigiana of Siena, Castel Sant ' Angelo in Rome, but the Spaniards, but the centers of teaching where he plays and teaches specialized courses, most stations RTV American, European and Oriental Quagliata have known performances in which music is disseminated systematically pianistic Spanish, from the post-Romantic to very same day, to stage the first decades nationalist century.In 1995 S.M. King of Spain Juan Carlos I awarded him for his work on diffusion of contemporary Spanish music in concerts and recordings, over many years and Porel world, granting him the title of Knight's Cross of the Order of Civil Merit .