June has been an especially interesting month with a several highlights provided by distinguished friends.
On 5 June we enjoyed the penultimate recital in our Sala Ponce Flute Series, given by Joaquín Melo and Irina Decheva. It was a truly outstanding concert of French music given by this very well established Duo. Works by Poulenc, Debussy, Fauré, Godard, Enescu and Louis Ganne were ‘standard’ repertoire but played with a wonderful freshness.
The previous day we had attended a beautiful reception at the home of Martha Chapa and Alejandro Ordorica who had been awarded the Premio Nacional de Periodismo 2016 for their weekly cultural TV program “El Sabor del Saber” on TV Mexiquense. The guest list of the show reads like a Who’s Who of the Arts in Mexico and I’m proud to say that I have also appeared There were many famous personalities at the reception but for me, meeting up again with the designer Cristina Pineda was an especial pleasure.
Later in the month we attended an extraordinary event at the National Lottery when our great friend Leonardo Nierman was honoured with his portrait on the lottery tickets. After a number of speeches and a video about the great artist’s work we were treated to a surreal spectacle – the drawing of the numbers for the lottery. Various cages containing little numbered balls were tumbled, ejected from their spheres and “called” in an almost operatic manner by a small army of young, uniformed people. We didn’t win with any of our tickets – but it was a remarkable experience!
On the longest day of the year we attended the Annual General Meeting of AMISTAD BRITANICO MEXICANA at the Britsh Ambassador’s residence. AMISTAD is a remarkable organisation which has done an enormous amount of remarkable initiatives in the last thirty years in building and helping to equip schools and hospitals. I am proud to be Amistad’s Cultural Ambassador and take every opportunity I can to promote the society and to raise funds for its many projects.
The following day we assembled at the British Embassy to honour Jo Cox, the British Member of Parliament who was murdered. At the same moment, thousands of people assembled in Trafalgar Square in London and at every British Embassy around the globe to honour this remarkable woman and to stand together the defend Democracy.
On Friday morning we awoke to the news that by a small majority, the population of Britain had voted to leave the European Union. All of us with British connections who work in the Arts and Culture are devastated and are extremely concerned about the future. According to the statistics a huge majority of young people voted to stay whilst the older members of society by and large voted to leave. Scotland and Northern Ireland both voted to stay whilst England and Wales voted to leave. Maybe we are witnessing the beginning of the disintegration of the United Kingdom? It is a very sad – some would say catastrophic – decision.
I am especially looking forward to two events next month. On 9 July I will be giving the last of our Sala Ponce Concerts with Carlos Salmerón and Adolfo Ramos, when we play the great Weber Trio and, maybe for the first time in Mexico, the Mendelssohn D Minor Trio. When Mendelssohn was about to publish the Trio, his publishers insisted that a special version be made for flute, cello and piano. My teacher and dear friend András Adorjan has just published a new edition he has made and sent me an advance copy. I hope you can come and hear it because it is a truly wonderful work and we are very much looking forward to playing it!
Trio No.1 en D menor, Op.49 – Felix Mendelssohn
This first season of Flute Recitals in Sala Ponce has been very successful and INBA has asked me to organise a second season next year. Since this year’s guests were all Principals from orchestras around the Republic, the next season will feature Principals from many of Mexico City’s orchestras.
