Ensemble Avantgarde

Mexico is far away. A difference in time of seven hours.

Mexico is foreign ground, especially because we believe that, owing to its past, it is merely something like a relative twice-removed. A foreign culture and way of life, peculiar ways of dealing with death, religiousness. Foreign also its art, whether old or new. Foreign also its music? From the veils of fog generated by the difference in time appear – like a mirage – spectres of Mexican music: “the Mexican Charles Ives” Silvestre Revueltas, Xenakis-indoctrinated Mario Lavista, Ana Lara as representative of a new generation, and Peter Garland, who lived in Mexico many years and tried to penetrate the heart of traditional Mexican music with the view of an outsider. Mexico! Listen!

Steffen Schleiermacher