The Puerto Vallarta Chamber Orchestra begins its fifth season by performing at the American School (Colegio Americano) on Sunday, December 13th.

The performance will take place on the newly expanded theater stage at the outdoor amphitheater. The performance begins at 8:00. Tickets are available at the door one hour before curtain on the evening of the concert. The ticket price is $100 pesos per person (students free) for this open seating event.

The Banderas Bay Community Choir will, once again, share the stage with the Chamber Orchestra. This year’s choir has grown beyond 70 voices, with participants from all around the Banderas Bay Area; including the Bass Soloist, Alberto Montalvo, who is in the early stages of launching his dreams of an operatic career.

Both the orchestra and the community choir are under the direction of Nick Salmans. Among the music to be performed are compositions from Telemann and Bizet, as well as selections from Handel’s Messiah.

For further information: vallartachamberorchestra (at) gmail.com

CONCIERTO CLASSICO de OTOÑO
Young People’s Autumn Classical Concert

Once again it’s the arts, the gourmet festival, the shows …But let’s not forget that the concert season is upon us too!

As always, Biblioteca Los Mangos is hosting our year-end classical concert, the CONCIERTO CLASSICO de OTOÑO on FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20 at 6:00 p.m. on the Library’s 11th anniversary.

Running stronger than ever in its 6th year now, these classical music and dance performances are the few opportunities to motivate and encourage our Vallartan youths to play in public.

The Performers:
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The Director of the Biblioteca Los Mangos, Ricardo Murrieta, has again been instrumental in involving various local schools and studios …the Sindicato de Filarmonicos, the Colegios San Juan de Asbaje, Ameyali, Jean Piaget… to name a few, as well as the dance studios at the Biblioteca itself … to participate in this worthy endeavour.

So… come on all once again and show your usual warm support for these aspiring young and eager musicians and dancers!

For more details, please call the Biblioteca: 224-9966 or Cecilia: 223-4606

Nov. 20th at 6 pm
Concierto Classico de Otoño
at the Bibloiteca de Los Mangos
Calle Francisco Villa,1000, Col. Versailles, Puerto Vallarta

Donation Suggested

Lila Downs will be performing a free concert at 9 pm, on Friday, December 11, 2009, in Valle de Banderas, Nayarit, México as part of the Fiestas del 20 Aniversario de la Fundación de la Bahía.

POSTSCRIPT: I just returned from this concert and it was great. Bahia de Banderas is a little town inland from Bucerias and it is so small that it doesn’t even seem to have any restaurants on its zocola, where an enormous stage was set up. This free show was run like it was for an audience of 20,000 in a town of 5,000 (and maybe 2,000 showed up). I don’t understand why half of Vallarta wasn’t there, but there are a lot of things I don’t understand about this land.

Transportation from Puerto Vallarta to this concert is now available at 100 pesos per person RT. If there are few people interested, vans will be used and in the case of many there will be a bus.

Pickups are at 6:30 pm at Farmacia Guadalajara on Insurgentes, Old town and 7 pm at Walmart. Reservations are necessary to organize this transportation.

The concert will be in Valle de Banderas, about 45-60 minutes away from Vallarta. The vans or bus will leave from Farmacia GDL, with another pick up at WalMart.

Contact Astrid van Dam, Superior Tours Vallarta

• www.superiortoursvallarta.com
• info (at) superiortoursvallarta.com
• tel/fax +52 322 29 37226

Lila Downs was born 1968 in Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca. She performs her own compositions as well as tapping into native Mesoamerican music of the Mixtec, Zapotec, Maya and Nahuatl cultures.

Downs is the daughter of Mixtec cabaret singer Anita Sánchez and Allen Downs, a Scottish/English-American professor of art and cinematographer from Minnesota. She grew up partly in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, partly in the U.S. state of California as a teen, and Minnesota as an adult where she graduated from the University of Minnesota in voice and anthropology.

She later returned to Mexico where she learned to weave. Later, she began singing in the club scenes of Oaxaca and Philadelphia along with Paul Cohen, an American-born saxophonist. They began collaborating together on songs that would slowly evolve into Downs’s subsequent recordings. Cohen went on to become both Downs’ husband and her artistic director.

In recent years, Downs and her band have toured widely in Mexico, South America, the US and Europe. She was also heard in the soundtrack to the movie Frida in a song, Burn it Blue, that was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song and that she performed at the 75th Academy Awards. Other songs that she performed on the soundtrack are “Benediction and Dream,” “Estrella Oscura,” and “La Llorona.” Other movies with a Lila Downs song are Tortilla Soup, Real Women Have Curves and Fados by Carlos Saura. She was also invited to the Twelve Girls Band’s concert in Shanghai, where she sings in French and English. Downs is currently based in Coyoacán, a borough of Mexico City.
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