recap of Jan. 10 Broomfield: Early New Mexican Folk Songs

I attended my first free event of 2007 on Wednesday the 10th (no, I didn't make it to 365 Days/365 Plays last week as I'd planned), the first concert in the CU in Broomfield series: Early New Mexican Folk Songs presented by Brenda M. Romero. As the Chair of Musicology at CU and a native of New Mexico, Dr. Romero was able to introduce each song with some historical background and comments on the style of the music.

Despite how relatively close I live to the Broomfield Auditorium, I arrived late. My drive home from work had taken 95 minutes -- mind you, in clear, dry, accident-free conditions -- bringing my grand total for time spent in my car that day to 2 hours 45 minutes. I walked into the house ready to break something or someone; even the good radio stations sound old after that much time spent in traffic. With only minutes to go before the concert was to begin, I decided I wasn't going to let the The Man keep me down, so I quickly ate a PB&J and jumped back in my car.

I could hear an a cappella solo as I entered the auditorium, Dr. Romero's first number, "Bandita sea Diós!" She was gradually joined on stage over the course of the next couple of songs by guitarist Steve Mullins, cellist Carmen Olguín-Taylor, and violinist Alejandro Gómez-Guíllen, each of whom were given the spotlight to perform a solo at different points in the concert.

The first half of the program focused on Spanish songs that had been handed down over the centuries in New Mexico. Dr. Romero described the performance of folk songs in isolated villages essentially as a "private tradition" up until the mid-20th century, in some cases resulting in the preservation of ancient Iberian lyrics and musical forms. This fact was borne out over the weekend when I was watching a PBS program on Alan Lomax in which an old Spanish woman was filmed trying to remember all the words to "Gerineldo," a ballad that Romero also performed.

The PBS connection worked backward in time as well during Romero's comments in the second half regarding inditas. Translated as a diminutive of "Indian woman," indita is now also a term applied to a song form that developed in New Mexico around the same time as the corrido, about which I had just happened to watch a different PBS program the previous weekend. The indita is considered to be more feminine and less agressive, but still concerned mainly with serious subjects and arising out of a troubadour tradition.

Romero apologized early in the concert for her energy level, explaining that she had just returned from research in Colombia the day before and the quartet had really only that day to rehearse. They did seem to have their heads deep in their sheet music for most of the concert, which Romero attributed to their classical approach and which was most notable by its absence in moments when they relied more on eye contact to stay together, such as when providing hand clap percussion during Mullins's muscular flamenco solo. Romero's singing voice is a folk voice, well-suited to the repertoire and on best display when the ensemble worked together more as a folk group. In fact, my favorite part of the 90-minute concert occurred after I thought the whole thing was already over. After performing the final number printed in the program, the ensemble took their bows and left the stage as the audience of about 100+ applauded. I was pulling my gloves on in the lobby when I heard more applause and the beginning of the encores. And this is where the folk sensibility took over, as these were numbers they apparently hadn't had a chance to rehearse yet. Having to rely more on eye contact and a sense of exploring the music together, the players were able to relax and actually started to swing (if that's possible with folk music). I didn't catch the titles of the songs, but in the last one I thought I caught a refrain of "suspirando por tu amor." Now I don't speak Spanish, having done the practical thing as a girl growing up 1980s Los Angeles by studying French for four years, but that seems to be a damn romantic thing to say to someone.

All in all, the best 90 minutes I spent that day.