Once again the cultural activities here are amazing. We went to an orchestral event a few nights ago, gratis of course. As part of the distributed program was a flyer for a concert to be given by Angélica Balado to be held at the Teatro Peon Contreras. We absolutely love the music of Angélica and percussionist partner Melina Ruz. These two perform regularly at Amaro (a local downtown restaurant), and frequently as part of the lineup of musicians performing on street stages during the regular Saturday nights activities. Angélica and Melina have also performed at a number of other venues around town and we always try to go.
Angélica is a contemporary 'Trova' style singer/songwriter with a beautiful smoky voice; she plays guitar, sings, and is most often accompanied by the percussions and voice of Melina.
Last nights performance was sponsored by Instituto de Cultura de Yucatán. It was an acknowledgement and recognition of Angélica's 30 years in the music field here in Merída. The performance was indeed a treat as Angélica was backed up by a band of eight talented musicians one of whom was of course Melina Ruz. There was also a brief photo homenaje of Angélica's musical career which was very enjoyable.
The repertoire this evening was of new works by Angélica that haven't been widely heard yet. And they were great. There was also one costume change.
At the end of the evening Angélica was presented a plaque recognizing her 30 years in the local musical community, and unfortunately my spanish isn't what it should be, and my knowledge of local dignitaries also is severely lacking so I don't know who the 'guy' was that made the presentation. He was however recognized by the crowd who were pleased and enthusiastic at his entry to the stage. A number of flower offerings were also presented, and then we had a lovely encore (otra) performance.
Another bonus to the evening - we didn't realize you could get tickets before hand, so showed up at the box office 30 minutes before the doors open. The ticket agent and I were making our way through the seating chart, starting of course at stage level and moving ever higher; we were at the 3rd level when a man walked up and sort of pushed past me to reach a hand under the window partition to hand the woman 5 tickets that had been returned. We got 2 of these tickets at sat Row 3, stage front. WOO HOO! We could look Angélica in the eye, and she saw us as well. Also in attendance were friends Lida and Diana who were able to join us in Row 3 after the performance started.
Cultural Note Here! It is not uncommon here to say Yes to an invitation and then not show up. This is true for events at theaters like this and equally as common for invitations given and accepted for activities at your home. There is a lot of speculation about this phenomena but no clear consensus on the why's! Therefore, even though the seating chart indicated ALL the seats were taken when I was at the box office, the theater had plenty of open seats once the performance started
If you GOOGLE, or Search the internet for Angelica Balado you will get lots of 'hits', some of them are even vids of performances on YouTube. I could stick one in here, but which one - so if you want to see/here Angélica you can do it for yourself.
Should I list the band members that performed? Sure, Why Not!
Victor Lopez (Bateria)
Jorge Julian Gomez (Teclados)
Pepe Rivera (Bajo Electrico)
Melina Ruz (Percisiones y coros)
Jonathon Rojas (Guitarras y Direccion Musical)
Roman (Piano)
Lenny Sanchez y Victor Martinez (coros)