My Music Week

If I started my week on Friday, January 20th, when Alvaro Paulino, the charming, brilliant violinist founder of the Mariachi Tapatio de Alvaro Paulino , picked and rehearsed the songs that we plan to record for an  album to benefit our various favorite charitable  organizations such as Mano a Mano, Food is Arte, the PD Federation and the mariachi school where Alvaro selflessly gives lessons on this genre  to children and  teenagers to  help them connect with their roots.

I picked mostly old songs, songs that my parents played and my cousins, sisters and I  sang at the ranch when we were growing up.  Alvaro is a young man and had never even heard these tunes and  he’s excited particularly because we coincide on what our favorite song is , La Malpagadora. We’ll keep rehearsing and when we have the right arrangements , we’ll record and see what happens.  In the meantime, I’m having a great time.

Alvaro is planning something very special for Mother’s Day that they let us all know the details soon.  We know mothers  and grandmothers are at the center of the family and we always honor them.  Start asking them what their favorite songs are send them to me at zarela@zarela.com.   They had also been planning a conference on the mariachi culture and how it has helped feed the love of this most traditional of music to second and third generation Mexican Americans. The week before I had been visited by a  extremely well-organized delegation from educationally-bent The Mariachi Company who is also putting on a conference on mariachis and their mission is to make the genre known nationwide. So it seems mariachi music will fill the air this summer.

I attended yet another mariachi-related even this week-  the celebration of the 70th birthday and the  50th anniversary as a mariachi of Don Ramon Ponce .  Twenty years ago  he and his son Ramon founded the famous Mariachi Real de Mexico .  Visit there website and you will be amazed at their many accomplishments.

It was a sweet  family gathering and it was an honor for me to be included along with Consul General Carlos Manuel Sada and Maria Elena Cabezut, director of the Mexican Cultural Institute.

I must say though that last night’s lecture Forbidden Love Songs at the Instituto Cervantes has been the highlight of the all presentations I’ve attended in many a year.  I quote from the copy of their catalogue

“Boleros Prohibidos (Forbidden Love Songs) is a powerful multimedia tour-de-force on the romantic Cuban music of the 1950s, the golden age of the bolero in Havana’s cabarets and nightclubs, when world-class stars such as Olga Guillot, Elena Burke, and Beny Moré were creating their best ballads: ‘Miénteme’, ‘Qué Sabes Tú’, and ‘Cómo Fue.’ Those legendary boleros, virtually forbidden for decades, now return in all their glory to conquer new generations worldwide.

It is sad that the magnificent presenter Armando Lopez did not have a DVD of the presentation for sale or any handouts but I will try to get a list of songs and their interpreters and post them as soon as I can.  In the meantime, go to amazon.com and download two of my favorite, sexy songs Hambre by Blanca Rosa Gil  aned Olga Guillot’s La Noche de Anoche.

Thank you to the staff of the Institute and congratulations to the brilliant Mr. Lopez

Run and get on their list.– you don’t want to miss another spectacular program.  They have fabulous, well organized events and Zarela Catering has catered for a number of them.