EDITORS NOTE:

This special double edition for 2000 presents a number of new and recently released publications and recordings to the readership of this NEWSLETTER. Reviews of some of these items will appear in future editions.  It is the hope that these new materials will be recommended to the libraries of the members’s home institutions and utilized for research, teaching and performance purposes.

With the explosive growth of the use of the internet, it now seems the time to begin to publish the NEWSLETTER on the WEB-SITE of the Study Group exclusively.  This will begin with volume seven, in the spring of 2001.  We now have an expert web-master Michael O’Connor, who has re-designed the web site and will maintain it.  Very many thanks to Michael for this generous work on behalf of the Study Group.

Special thanks go also to the contributors for this edition, Paul Murphy, John Koegel and Dieter Lehnhoff. 

TORONTO SPECIAL STUDY SESSION

“Crossing Borders: Spanish and Mexican Theatrical Music in Mexico and the United States.”
Thursday, 2 November, 2000, Sheraton Plaza Hotel, 8-11pm

William Summers, Chair (Dartmouth College)
John Koegel, Respondent at large

Panelists:
Paul Laird (University of Kansas), 
Ricardo Miranda (Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico City)
Janet Sturman (University of Arizona)
Jeffrey Belnap (Brigham Young University, Hawaii)

     These four scholars, with varying perspectives and methodologies (musicology, ethno-musicology, cultural studies), will discuss their recent findings about the creation, history, and reception of Spanish and Mexican theatrical music in Mexico and the United States, sung in secular and sacred performance spaces and reflecting non-sacred and sacred repertories. 
     Paul Laird examines the African and Iberian ethnic impulses repre-sented in Baroque sacred villancicos with a theatrical connection, especially those created in Madrid and Mexico City by composers such as Matias Ruiz and Antonio de Salazar. He also shows how selected texts of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz were set to music in both Spain and Mexico. 
     Ricardo Miranda presents his new findings about the important zarzuela tradition in nineteenth-century Mexico. He demonstrates how Mexican composers inserted nationalistic themes into a Spanish theatrical form. 
     Jeffrey Belnap discusses the intersections between theater, music, dance, the visual arts, and nationalism in Rivera and Chávez’s ballet H.P. (Caballos de Vapor).  He believes that this ballet can be read as an allegory for the relationship between the industrialized north (the USA) and the tropical south (the isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico). 
     Janet Sturman presents her findings about the performance of Spanish zarzuela in El Paso, Texas, and demonstrates that the El Paso International Festival of Zarzuela has provided formal recognition of the cross-cultural value of musical theater with Spanish text and dialogue, and has reinforced the city’s continuing role as a conduit for cultural exchange between Latin America, Spain, and the United States. 
The speakers will also discuss as a group themes common to their pre-sentations.

Special thanks go to Professor John Koegel for organizing this Study Session, which promises to be both multidisciplinary and also particularly germaine to the theme of this multi-organization meeting.

Recording Reviews

News and Notes