Las Voces Keeps Up Steady Beat : Music: Group has brought little heard repertory of Latin American vocal and choral music to San Diego.

When Xiomara Di Maio decided to drop out of medical school in her native Venezuela to pursue music studies in the United States, her father admonished her that she would starve if she went into the music field.

“And what he said to me was true,” Di Maio said with an ironic laugh.

Founding the vocal ensemble Las Voces in 1990 and serving as its music director has not put food on the table. To support herself while developing this fledgling musical group, the San Diego resident has had to do everything from giving piano lessons to waiting tables. But Las Voces has brought the unique and little heard repertory of Latin American vocal and choral music to San Diego, a border city whose curiosity over the years about neighboring cultures has been minimal.

Las Voces will present its second annual Christmas concert of villancicos and aguinaldos (songs and Christmas carols) from Latin America at the University of San Diego’s Founders Hall Chapel at 8 p.m. Friday. The program will include carols by Chilean Juan Orrego-Salas and portions of “La Misa Cubana” by Enrique Ubieta, a Cuban composer living in New York.

Performing this music puts the 34-year-old Di Maio in touch with the music she sang growing up in Caracas.

“I sang four years in a chamber vocal ensemble called Madrigalistas Vicente Emilio Sojo (a noted Venezuelan composer) that sang Venezuelan and other Latin American music. That’s what hooked me on the music. We traveled a lot in Venezuela, and the group went to Europe the year I came to the (United States). I formed Las Voces because I wanted to have something like the group at home.”

Replicating the Madrigalistas in San Diego has been more difficult than Di Maio imagined. From her experiences at Indiana University, where she completed a master’s program in conducting and worked a year on a Ph.D. in the same field, she knew that North Americans were largely ignorant of Latin American music. She also knew that scores for the music she wanted to perform would be difficult to acquire here.

But finding singers for her ensemble proved to be the most challenging hurdle. The roster of the 12-member ensemble has turned over three times in its two short years.

“It has been hard to keep a group because the singers are not paid. My first two groups had some Hispanic singers, but my current group is completely Anglo, which is a challenge since they are all working in a foreign language.”

Las Voces’ inaugural program in May, 1990, was well-attended, especially by members of the area’s Latino community. Performances at the Chula Vista Public Library have also drawn a substantial portion of Spanish-speaking listeners.

“I think they are proud that I am putting music together that represents them. The concerts provide a chance to be united, not just Chileans, Argentinians and Mexican-Americans.”

In the short time Di Maio has worked with Las Voces, several Latin American composers have sent her music to perform. The staff at Indiana University’s Latin American Institute put her in touch with Ubieta, who not only sent her manuscripts of his choral music, but composed a Christmas motet for Las Voces, which the group premiered last December.

The unusual rhythmic character of Latin American music, a cross-cultural melange of Indian, African and Spanish influences, requires a varied battery of percussion effects.

For Las Voces’ concerts, Di Maio’s husband, percussionist Ian Shields, assists. She met Shields in the orchestra pit at an Indiana University production of “La Traviata “ when they were undergraduates. Shields is assisted by percussionist Don Morehead, and pianist Diana Damitz accompanies the ensemble.

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King of instruments. To introduce elementary students to the Spreckels organ in Balboa Park, organist Chris Cook thought a piece on the order of Benjamin Britten’s “Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra” would be in order.

Through the Spreckels Organ Society, which sponsors Friday afternoon educational programs for fifth-grade students from the San Diego Unified School District, Cook commissioned local composer Daniel Burton to write a piece that would demonstrate the instrument in a way that would hold the students’ interest.

Burton produced “Rex the King,” a title that alludes to the organ’s nickname “the king of instruments.” Cook has played Burton’s new opus weekly since the beginning of October and is pleased with its effect.

“The narrator describes the instrument’s main features, and the music then demonstrates the kinds of sounds the organ can make, from the various fanfare reeds to quiet string stops and a host of percussion effects,” Cook explained. “Burton throws in Wagner’s familiar ‘Bridal Chorus’ and then segues into Mendelssohn’s ‘Wedding March,’ ending in an extended fanfare.”

Because he’s playing the music, Cook cannot see the students’ reactions.

“But I can hear them giggling and tittering. They are so excited after I play the piece, that I find it necessary to play the theme from ‘Beauty and the Beast’ to calm them down for the next item on the program.”

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Tenor alert. Opera buffs can hear tenor Richard Leech sing Edgardo in today’s broadcast at 10 a.m. of “Lucia Di Lammermoor” from the Metropolitan Opera on KFSD-FM (94.1).

The young American tenor’s stock has risen considerably since he sang the role for San Diego Opera in 1989, and he is considered one of the most promising tenors of this generation.

He made his local debut in the company’s 1988 production of Gounod’s “Faust,” and he returns to San Diego in April to sing the title role in Massenet’s “Werther.”

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FINAL CODA:

Roger Reynolds’ most recent symphonic work “Dreaming” will be given its premiere in Carnegie Hall on Jan. 10 by the American Composers Orchestra under Dennis Russell Davies . . . .

UC San Diego graduate student Mark Applebaum has been commissioned by Carleton College to write a work for the Minnesota college’s orchestra. Tentatively titled “Dead White Males (Munching in the Perspectival Cafeteria),” it will premiere in the spring of 1994 . . . .

The San Diego Symphony has raised $135,000 of its $250,000 goal in its Rossini Notes project. At this weekend’s concerts, music director Yoav Talmi will conduct slightly more than half of the familiar “William Tell” Overture to symbolize the fund drive’s progress . . . .

Under the baton of Randall Tweed, the Grossmont Orchestra and Master Chorale will host a sing-along “Messiah” Dec. 13, at 7 p.m. in El Cajon’s Theatre East . . . .

CRITIC’S CHOICE / THE REAL ‘MESSIAH’

At this holiday season, everybody and his brother attempts some kind of “Messiah” performance. This year, only the San Diego Master Chorale and San Diego Symphony will offer the real thing--the complete oratorio with first-rate soloists and full orchestra.

Guest conductor Kenneth Kiesler, who led these same forces two years ago in a sparkling, vital “Messiah,” returns to do the honors Thursday at Copley Symphony Hall and Friday at El Cajon’s new 2,000-seat Shadow Mountain Community Church. Both performances start at 8 p.m.

Soloists are mezzo-soprano Mary Ann McCormick, tenor David Hamilton, bass Jubilant Sykes, and soprano Virginia Sublett, whose vocal agility and tonal purity have won her acclaim in both Baroque opera and oratorio.