When the Peruvian musician and conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya was hired as Music Director of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra (FWSO) in the year 2000, it meant a big change for that orchestra. Harth-Bedoya was ambitious, not only for his own career, but for the success of the FWSO. The orchestra was already well known for its work with the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, but now they found themselves making recordings, albeit mostly for their own label, and largely music by Latin American composers, yet with some amusing detours along the way.
We are indebted to Harth-Bedoya for bringing into the light music from his native land of Peru. He has had a close relationship with Jimmy Lopez, born in Lima in 1978, recording a number of Lopez's works, including “Fiesta,” which was encored when FWSO played Carnegie Hall in 2008.
Harth-Bedoya also allied himself with another Peruvian musician, tenor Juan Diego Florez, who astonished audiences at the Met when he popped out all nine high C notes in Gaetano Donizetti's “Daughter of the Regiment,” earning for himself a rare standing ovation and subsequent encore of “Ah! Mes amis.”
Here, Florez sings “En mi Viejo San Juan.”
In an album called Sentimiento Latino, Florez sings En Mi Viejo, San Juan, testament of sorts to the important range of Pan America, especially as it applies to the US relationship with Puerto Rico. The song was especially poignant during World War II when the 65th Infantry took Puerto Rican soldiers abroad. From the moment they lost sight of their island, they became homesick for their dear San Juan.
Possibly Harth-Bedoya has at times been homesick for Peru, especially when he made the very sentimental Alma del Peru album.
“El Condor Pasa” might take your mind to Simon and Garfunkel, yet have you wondering if this is derived from pre-Columbian sources. You may be onto something, for “Condor Pasa” is based substantially on indigenous Andean musical traditions, a topic which Miguel Harth-Bedoya studies. His album Inca Trail Connections was inspired by the Caminos del Inca, an extensive network of roads that traverses South America across the countries of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina and Colombia.
This network connected lands and people, uniting them physically and resulting in the sharing of ideas. As the Inca Trail connected our ancient predecessors, music continues to connect and unite us today.
Lest one believe that Harth-Bedoya is Peruvian through and through, that he is permanently rooted to Peru, he invited Asleep at the Wheel to record with the Forth Worth Symphony Orchestra, and even wears a handsome black Stetson in the album's cover picture.
Part of those miles and miles of Texas trace the historic Pan American highway, which we will rejoin tomorrow with yet another episode of Momentos Musicales.
Buen viaje!
