San Diego Spotlight : Cellist Prieto Is Insistent on Promoting Latin Music

Today’s classical music audiences tend to be conservative by nature, and chamber music devotees are the most entrenched in their musical preferences. Big-name string quartets, for example, can sandwich a daring or unfamiliar work into the middle of a program, providing they surround it with Beethoven and Brahms.

Mexican cellist Carlos Prieto, however, is not one to cower before the hidebound expectations of his audiences. He will play a recital of 20th Century music from Mexico and South America at 8 p.m. today in La Jolla’s Sherwood Auditorium. The program is presented jointly by the La Jolla Chamber Music Society and the Mexican Consulate.

When asked to compromise on his original program, which was devoted exclusively to composers from south of the border, Prieto did not appease his presenters with a comfortable Brahms or Dvorak offering, but countered by adding the Dmitri Shostakovich Cello Sonata, Op. 40.

“There were so many new pieces by Mexican composers that would be heard for the first time in San Diego, I chose to add an interesting contemporary work that was better known,” Prieto explained by phone from Dallas, where he was recording music by Mexican composers Frederico Ibarra, Manuel Ponce and Carlos Chavez.

Prieto conceded that his conversion to promoting Latin American music did not come early in his career. Schooled by French cellist Fournier and American cellist Leonard Rose, Prieto cut his teeth on standard classical repertory.

“For many years, I played very little music from Latin America. But, seven years ago, I discovered I had a great interest in this repertory. One of my early discoveries was a forgotten cello concerto written by Mexican composer Ricardo Castro in 1903. It is the first cello concerto by a Mexican composer. Then I asked Latin American composers I knew to write concertos for me. To date, I have 12 new cello concertos.”

Besides the Shostakovich Sonata, Prieto’s La Jolla program will include Ponce’s Sonata, a Sonatina for solo cello by Manuel Enriquez, the “Pampaena” No. 2 by Argentine Alberto Ginastera, and the Grand Tango by Astor Piazzolla, another Argentine composer. This fall, Prieto has been giving variations of this Latin American program in Southern California to coincide with major exhibits of Mexican art in Los Angeles. In this same season, he also managed to squeeze in a Russian tour, his eighth visit there since 1962, when he was a student at the University of Moscow.

“When I play chamber music in Russia, I include at least one Mexican work on each program. The Russian audiences are very warm audiences. Now, they are extremely eager to hear the contemporary and even avant-garde music they had not been allowed to hear in the past.”

Though the Russian political climate has improved, Prieto and his entourage last month encountered the reality of the concomitant economic deprivation.

“The transformation is fantastic. For the first time, Russian friends of mine were able to invite me to their home without fear of reprisals. You feel a tremendous difference. At the same time, economic conditions are deplorable. I was traveling with my wife and my accompanist from Moscow. When we played in (Soviet) Georgia, for three nights we were left without any dinner. There was literally nothing left in the restaurant, and they took us into the kitchen to show us. They did come up with two bottles of mineral water.”

Early music goes high-tech. “Songs of Courts and Cathedrals,” a program of Renaissance vocal music featuring the Early Music Ensemble of San Diego, will be broadcast by satellite to 125 public radio stations across the country starting Tuesday. The 30-minute program was made last year at the KPBS studios at San Diego State University. Some of the local vocal quintet’s performances were recorded at the historic mission basilica San Diego de Alcala, and at the San Diego Museum of Art. Local broadcast of the program (Channel 15) is scheduled for 10 p.m. Nov. 30.

Bach for more coffee. For the past four years, local coffee houses have sponsored the coffee-themed mail-art show, an unusual event that juxtaposes art, coffee and the music of J. S. Bach. Professional and novice artists are invited to mail ink drawings, photographs, poems and collages of all sorts on a coffee theme to Hillcrest’s oldest coffee house, Quel Fromage. Part of the challenge is to design the mail art so the postmark will be seen on the piece when it is exhibited.

This year’s gala exhibit opening takes place at 7 p.m. Nov. 30 in the downtown Sushi Performance Gallery (852 8th Ave.). As usual, free coffee will be provided, and a complete performance of Bach’s immortal “Coffee” Cantata will be given at 7:30 and 8:30 p.m. by the Bach Society Chamber Orchestra and vocal soloists.

There is still time for aspiring artists to submit a coffee-themed entry. The deadline for submissions is today; all art should be mailed to Quel Fromage, 523 University Ave., San Diego 92103. For information, call 491-2473.