THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY College of Music presents
Guest Artist Recital
“Near the sun, far from the sea.
Bolivian Salon Music of the 19th Century”
Mariana Alandia Navajas, Piano
Tuesday, September 3, 2024
7:30 p.m. | Longmire Recital Hall
PROGRAM
El Alto de la Alianza
Modesta Sanjinés Uriarte Mazurca (1832–1887)
Remembrance of the Andes Mazurca
Rose Colour Dreams Adolfo Ballivian Coll Berceuse (1831–1874)
Titita Héctor Sanjinés Mazurca (1870–1943)
— Brief Intermission—
Villa Imperial. Vals
Aire Indio 1
C-sharp minor Prelude
Aire Indio 9
Eduardo Caba (1880–1953)
To Ensure An Enjoyable Concert Experience For All…
Please refrain from talking, entering, or exiting during performances. Food and drink are prohibited in all concert halls. Recording or broadcasting of the concert by any means, including the use of digital cameras, cell phones, or other devices is expressly forbidden. Please deactivate all portable electronic devices including watches, cell phones, pagers, hand-held gaming devices or other electronic equipment that may distract the audience or performers.
Recording Notice: This performance may be recorded. Please note that members of the audience may at times be included in this process. By attending this performance you consent to have your image or likeness appear in any live or recorded video or other transmission or reproduction made in conjunction to the performance.
Florida State University provides accommodations for persons with disabilities. Please notify the College of Music at (850) 644-3424 at least five working days prior to a musical event to request accommodation for disability or alternative program format.
Gustav Mahler famously stated that tradition should be seen as the transmission of fire rather than the worship of ashes. This profound observation, coupled with a sense of curiosity and the desire to reconstruct a musical heritage, offers valuable insight into Bolivia musical history.
The pieces showcased on this concert are the culmination of extensive work spanning many years, influenced by encounters, affinities, and conflicts that have shaped this carefully curated selection of XIX century Bolivian repertoire. This collection is entirely based on the sheet music book Bolivian Salon Music of the 19th Century, meticulously edited and published by Javier Parrado Moscoso and Mariana Alandia Navajas.
In memory of these composers, I am honored to be the one who gives them a voice once again!
Modesta Sanjinés Uriarte (La Paz 1832 – Pau, France 1887), composer, pianist, journalist, and philanthropist, was the great Bolivian lady from an illustrious family of patriots who fought for Bolivia’s independence. Modesta Sanjinés chose not to marry, perhaps to manage her inheritance. A pioneer of feminism, she financed the construction of the women’s pavilion in the General Hospital. In her will, she left a silver coin to each of the peasants who lived on her estates.
In 1858, she published her first group of works in Paris with Langlet, including Recuerdo de Los Andes and Variaciones sobre la Canción Patriótica written by the Italian Benedetto Vincenti, which years later became the national anthem of Bolivia.
Towards the end of her life, after a long illness, she returned to Paris to seek healing and publish another group of works, this time with Fouquet. For this edition, she hired Antoine Barbizet, the famous illustrator, to do the covers of her works, and he did a truly remarkable job. Barbizet also illustrated the works of Berlioz and Chabrier. Modesta Sanjinés died in 1887 in Pau, southwest of France, at 56, leaving a musical legacy of around 60 works.
Adolfo Ballivián Coll (La Paz, 1831 – Chuquisaca, 1874) was a poet, composer, politician, and president of Bolivia, the son of Don José de Ballivián y Segurola, also a president. His government advocated and enforced deep respect for democratic principles, tolerance of the opposition, freedom of the press, decentralization of the country’s revenues, and many other wise measures.
Adolfo Ballivián received a thorough education in Chile and Europe and wrote around sixty works. His works include salon music, variations, and the opera Atahuallpa, now lost along with most of his musical compositions. He published many of his political, literary, and musical works in elegant editions in London.
Héctor Sanjinés (Sucre, 1870 – Potosí, 1943) was an attorney and pianist who studied under the tutelage of Julia Sologueren at the Santiago de Chile Conservatory. Sanjinés founded the Philharmonic Society and the Chamber Orchestra of the Fine Arts Circle in Potosí. Additionally, he was a founding member of the National Conservatory of Music in La Paz.
As a pianist and orchestral conductor, we have evidence of their performances in Sucre alongside Hercilia Fernández. Additionally, they conducted the orchestra for the Municipal Theatre premiere in Oruro in 1905.
Eduardo Caba Valsalia (Potosí, 1880 – La Paz, 1953) is the most significant Bolivian composer of the first half of the 20th century, undoubtedly the most recognized and admired today.
He showed exceptional musical talent, composing the waltz Villa Imperial at 14. He began his academic training in Buenos Aires and Madrid later in life after writing his first 6 Aires Indios de Bolivia. Nevertheless, his thirst for knowledge remained an unwavering constant throughout his life.
As a researcher of the music of the native cultures of his country, he incorporated into his musical vocabulary the forms of construction of these sound constructions with a great diversity of resources that include chords without thirds, parallelisms, and formal structures according to the demands of his material. He created most of his works for the piano, an instrument that allowed him to explore its wide range of color possibilities. Ricordi Americana and Lotermoser published and reprinted several times only his first 6 Aires Indios, and 6 Songs.
Mariana Alandia Navajas initially trained with the illustrious pedagogue Mario Estenssoro and the Maestra Sarah Ismael. For three years she continued her study in San José, Costa Rica with Miguel Ángel Quesada at the School of Musical Arts of the University of Costa Rica.
After finishing her studies in piano at the National Conservatory of Music of La Paz, she worked privately with Héctor Pell in Rome. She culminated her training thanks to a scholarship from IILA with a biennial course of piano improvement in Italy under the guidance of Héctor Pell, a well-known pianist, and pedagogue of the piano school of Vincenzo Vitale, Sergio Lorenzi, and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli.
Mariana also has a degree in pedagogy from the Universidad Mariscal José Ballivián (Beni, Bolivia), which allows her to teach in higher education centers. She has performed in the most important concert halls of his country and been a soloist of the National Symphony Orchestra on countless occasions and the most Bolivian orchestras. Her orchestral repertoire includes concertos by J. S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin, and Gershwin.
Mariana has also given recitals as a soloist and with chamber ensembles in Lima, Havana, San José de Costa Rica, Madrid, Rome, Vienna, and other European cities.
Commissioned by the Cultural Foundation of the Central Bank of Bolivia, she recorded the piano works of composer Eduardo Caba in 2015. Mariana is currently developing a publishing project with the composer Javier Parrado. They published seven books with the music of E. Caba and Bolivian composers of the 19th century.
During the years of the pandemic, she continued her activity with virtual interpretation workshops, recitals, concerts, and conferences in different institutions and universities of the country. In 2021 and 2022, with the support of the Fundación Cultural del Banco Central de Bolivia, she produced documentaries on the most important Bolivian living composers. This project included commissioning a piano piece and premieres in two historic inclusive recitals with music of many generations of Bolivian composers that were performed at the Tiwanacu Hall of the Bolivian Chancellery.
In 2020, for the 250th anniversary of the birth of Beethoven, the German embassy and the Bolivian Catholic University invited her to play two concerts with the works of this great composer. Also, in 2022 with the support of the German Embassy and the Government of the Department of Tarija, she organized and played the concert Emperor, Op. 73 by Beethoven. In March 2021, she presented a concert lecture in the framework of the International Festival of Francophonie on the composer Lily Boulanger and played a recital in the theater doña Albina of the Patiño Space with works of Chopin with two of her most advanced students.
In 2021, the magazine Khana N.61 published her article about Modesta Sanjinés Uriarte, the great Bolivian composer of the XIX century. At the beginning of 2022, the Solydes Foundation sponsored lectures and workshops in five cities in Bolivia. The main objective was the interpretation of the repertoire published in the book Bolivian Salon Music from the XIX Century to the beginning of the XX Century (edited with with Javier Parrado Moscoso). This project reached hundreds of music students.
This year, in March, she was again soloist of the National Symphony Orchestra with the Concert for Piano and Orchestra by Alberto Villalpando. Also, the Solydes Foundation and the Government of the Department of Tarija sponsored a recording of the Bolivian music of the 19th century in Buenos Aires for the Virtuoso Records label, which specializes in Latin American music. The international release will be in October of this year.
For 20 years, she has been teaching piano (advanced level) at the Conservatorio Plurinacional de Música in La Paz city and training several talented young pianists.