Edwin Guevara Gutiérrez’s Ibero-American Landscapes: A Premiere All Its Own
It was a little before 11am when I arrived at Crowder Hall at the University of Arizona’s Fred Fox School of Music. Dressed in concert black for a later rehearsal and with two masks pressed securely to my face, I entered the concert hall and found a chair on the right side of the middle section of seats, making sure that I sat at least 5 chairs away from everyone else in all directions. I turned around and talked to one of my colleagues from across a few rows of seats as we waited for more of our classmates to show up. At times, it was hard to hear her through the density of the fabric masks we wore and the background noise of the musicians tuning their instruments onstage, but it was exciting nonetheless to finally be able to talk to someone face to face after a year of classes through a screen.
As more people began to show up, the chatter grew louder, but then quickly quieted down as our professor Dr. Matthew Mugmon walked to the stage and proceeded to give a few words about the performance we were about to witness, the premiere of Edwin Guevara Gutiérrez’s Ibero-American Landscapes. This piece was specifically commissioned for our class and was created with the intent that we would then go forth and create primary sources like the very one you are reading now, so that in years time, this piece might be studied by students like myself using the documents we provide. After our professor and the composer gave a few words about the piece, a final dress rehearsal began on stage for us to witness before the premiere.
It was interesting to be able to witness the rehearsal on stage like this. The musicians, Edwin Guevarra Gutiérrez on guitar, his wife Cecilia Palma on cello, Misael Barraza-Diaz also on guitar, and Diana Schaible on flute, all began to play through certain sections of the piece under Edwin’s direction. They began with the Zamba, the second section of the piece, where the rhythm was inspired by the musical styles of Argentina. In this section, the second guitar and cello both take on percussive parts in addition to their regular playing, using their hands and fingers to knock against the wood of their instruments to produce the sound. Making a last minute adjustment to this part, Edwin suggested that they try to vary the parts of the instruments that they strike in order to create a sound that was more similar to the traditional Argentinian Zamba. After going back and forth with Cecilia on how best to play the percussive part on her cello, they rehearsed the section again before moving on to the next part of their rehearsal that needed attention.
After looking at a few other sections throughout the piece, the musicians came to another noteworthy part of their rehearsal, playing through the final section of the piece, notated in the score as their “final signatures”. In this section, the music alternates between a chromatic monophonic eighth note pattern and a homophonic pattern, where the flute and cello play a series of repeated notes in one rhythmic pattern, while the guitars play repeated notes in another. Edwin wanted to practice his own percussive part in this section, stressing that it was especially important as it mimicked a particular kind of Latin American drum.
After rehearsing a few other small sections, our professor Dr. Mugmon once again took the stage, letting the musicians know that they should begin to get ready to perform their premiere. The musicians took their leave, and after Dr. Mugmon said a few words once again, they entered the stage to begin their performance.
The performers began their premiere, sure in their playing as they played through the first section with ease. I took particular notice of the second section, hoping to catch any noticible changes after the previous rehearsal. Both Edwin and Cecilia played through their percussive parts with exactly as planned in the rehearsal, using their fingers to trade off a rhythmic pattern on their respective instruments.
The performance continued, with each section addressing a different Ibero-American landscape. I couldn’t help but stare wide-eyed as they played, completely mesmerized by the interesting textures and tones and changing rhythms. They soon came to the final section of the piece: their final signatures. Listening closely, I could hear Edwin’s percussive rhythm beneath the fast-paced strumming of the guitar and the changing notes of the flute and cello, ending the piece on a quickly struck chord after a large percussive buildup to the cadence. The audience, frozen for a moment and in awe of the finale, quickly began to clap as the musicians stood to take their bows, and with that, another premiere solidified into history.
In this class, we focused very strongly on premieres, particularly the works of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. All of these premieres had very different outcomes. Edwin Guevara Gutiérrez’s premiere was not flooded by outrage and protest from the audience like the Rite of Spring, nor confusion and rejection of the bold decisions he made like Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. In the wake of a global pandemic, there was not an overflowing audience like Handel’s Messiah, and certainly not a performance in a small room like Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo. Instead, Guevara Gutiérrez’s premiere was something all its own: a collection of names spelled into the music, a commission for the purpose of creating history, a series of many masked rehearsals, and a short but meaningful performance to a small audience of college music students and a couple hundred people watching in their homes from around the world. Despite all the unique challenges it faced, I am forever grateful that I got to experience Ibero-American Landscapes make its mark on the world.
