Throughout the current season of Momentos Musicales, parallel to marking Hispanic Heritage Month, we are looking at the interplay of Latin American musical artists and similar musicians rooted in the United States. It makes for very interesting conversation.
During my years as a member of the San Antonio Symphony, we had experiences with the Mexican conductor Enrique Bátiz and the Uraguayan composer/conductor José Serebrier.
José Serebrier was born in Montevideo in 1938. He came to the United States as a teenager when he studied at the Curtis Institute, then with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood, and later conducting with Antal Doráti and Pierre Monteux.
In 1979, Serebrier came to San Antonio presenting a deal to our city's orchestra. He was already well-known in the U.S., also in England, and throughout Latin America. In approaching the management of the San Antonio Symphony, Maestro Serebrier proposed the orchestra tour Mexico City with he and the Mexican born conductor Jorge Velasco as guest conductors. His proposal carried considerable sway, underscored by his relationships with the Voice of America. Nat Greenberg, manager of the San Antonio Symphony at the time, signed on the dotted line and a few months later, Serebrier and Velasco arrived in San Antonio to prepare the orchestra for the tour.
As I recall, the San Antonio Symphony played three concerts at the Sala Nezahuacoytl with soloists Alfonso Moreno playing the Rodrigo “Concierto de Aranjuez” and the Swedish baritone, Håkan Hagegård , singing a set of Mahler songs. This was a true Pan American experience though its mix of musicians from Mexico, the U.S., and Uruguay, with the Swede, Håkan Hagegård for a trans-Atlantic component.
It is worth noting that guitarist Alfonso Moreno's resume includes substantial inter-continental travel. Between 1977 and 1982, Moreno played with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, El Paso Symphony, and the Baltimore Symphony.
At times the interplay between musicians up and down the Pan American highway becomes like a game of ping-pong. San Antonio is connected to Mexico City by that historic highway, travelled by Jack Kerouac in “On the Road,” and numerous orchestral musicians who made substantial careers playing in the Orquesta Sinfonica del Estado de Mexico (OSEM). Case in point, Chuck Berginc, formerly a trumpet player in the San Antonio Symphony, took the position of principal trumpet in the OSEM. Soon after he arrived in Toluca (highest city in North America, by the way), the orchestra made a recording of Rodrigo's “Fantasia para un gentilhombre” with soloist Alfonso Moreno. The conductor was Enrique Batiz.
Looking back to Jose Serebrier as composer for a moment, we realize that he never forgot his own roots deep into Uruguay, a country where tango is almost as prevalent as in Argentina. This may explain Serebrier's close friendship with another tango composer, Carlos Franzetti, who will be an important contributor to this season of Momentos Musicales shortly.
This recording of Serebrier's “Casi un Tango” features the work of American musician and English hornist, Molly Judson. She was previously a member of the Mexico City Philharmonic and later finished her substantial international career as a member of the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and National Orchestra of Catalonia, conducted here by Jose Serebrier.
