Beautiful Music

Today’s Beautiful Music is a celebration of Latin American music of the 16th and 17th centuries. The selections include Hanacpachap cussicuinin, a processional hymn to the Virgin Mary in the Quechua language. It’s followed by HOLA, HALA QUE VIENEN GITANAS by Juan de Araujo. The composer was born in Villafranca, Spain. He became maestro di […]

José de Cascante was a Colombian musician who lived from 1630-1702. Born in Bogotá his music is held in the Archive at Bogotá Cathedral, where he worked as Chapelmaster. Today’s Beautiful Music features José de Cascante’s 1690 villancico Detente asombro veloz.

Manuel Blasco was a composer in Quito, Ecuador who lived from c.1628-1695. He studied music at Colegio San Andrés in Lima, Peru, and later taught there. He was also Chapelmaster at Quito Cathedral. Today’s Beautiful Music is Manuel Blasco’s La Chacona me piden, ¡vaya! performed by sopranos Danielle Sampson and Tess Altveros and their colleagues

Ricardo Rodríguez Miranda started in music playing piano and taking music theory lessons from his grandmother. It wasn’t long before he was enrolled in a music school taking cello lessons, too. That’s when he became fascinated by early music and historical instruments; he started playing viola da gamba. Ricardo Rodríguez Miranda provides today’s Beautiful Music

Evangelina Mascardi began her musical studies and career as a classical guitarist. The Buenos Aires-born instrumentalist studied lute with Hopkinson Smith in Basel, Switzerland, and has become a top tier and sought-after musician. Today’s Beautiful Music features Evangelina Mascardi playing 16th century solos by Alonso Mudarra, Antonio de Cabezón, and Pietro Paolo Borrono. You can

Today’s Beautiful Music features a terrific group of virtuoso musicians — Tembembe Ensamble Continuo — from an October 12, 2017 concert at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Tembembe Ensamble Continuo defines itself as, “a Chamber group dedicated to the music, research, and dissemination of Hispanic baroque and the traditional sounds of Mexico and Latin

Today’s Beautiful Music is a program called Common Ground, a virtual production from April 2020 featuring Nuria Rial, voice, from Càlig, Castellón (Spain), Javier Ulises Illán, violin, from Madrid (Spain), and Hernán Milla, piano, from Ciudad Real (Spain). These talented musicians demonstrate meaningful collaboration, even when you can’t be in the same room together!

Today’s Beautiful Music is an excerpt from a live concert featuring guitarist Enrike Solinis and percussionist Pedro Estevan of some Baroque guitar dances. The Bilbao-born Solinis has performed with ensembles internationally and also directs the baroque ensemble, Euskal Barrokensemble, which he founded in Bilbao in 2006. Alicante native Pedro Estevan has been a member of

Antonio de Salazar was born in Puebla de los Angeles in approximately 1650 and lived until 1715. He worked as master of the chapel of Puebla Cathedral and at Mexico City Cathedral. As a church musician, most of his compositions were sacred. This is one of his lighter compositions, the Christmas villancico Tarará, qui yo

Today’s Beautiful Music features a delightful and illuminating concert and presentation about Peruvian baroque musician Pedro Ximenez. The Ximenez Quartet’s members are Karin Cuellar (violin), Simon Alexandre (violin), Namgon Lee (viola), and Jessica Korotkin (cello), and the ensemble performed in the 2022 Virtual Emerging Artists Showcase hosted by Early Music America.