Our first recommendation for Sunday is The Apollo Chamber Players' Mexican Kaleidoscope,a string trio and quartet concert that features pieces by prominent Mexican composers, including Manuel de Zumaya, a chapelmaster and composer who lived from 1678 to 1755. His music is mostly unknown, and new works are still being rediscovered.
"Zumaya was one of the first Mexican composers of the Baroque period, and he's the connection to Baroque music. He was the first person to translate Italian opera into Spanish," said Matthew Detrick, artistic director and violinist for Apollo.
"Between the Baroque period and the other composers on the program, there was a dearth of classical music and art in general in Mexico. It was only after the Mexican Revolution that Mexico was free from European influence and could cultivate its own music and art on its own terms."
Silvestre Revueltas, Manuel Ponce and Carlos Chávez, whose pieces are featured in the concert, became part of the worldwide push for folk-based music that began around the turn of the 20th century as they sought to re-create the indigenous music of Mexico.
"A lot of the folkloric elements are more rhythmic and dance-style, which is imagined because it wasn't written down. These composers wanted to go back to the roots and their ancestors, before Spanish influence and conquest, and bring back to the forefront the music of their ancestors," Detrick said.
A pre-concert lecture by University of Houston professor Dr. Howard Pollack takes place at 5:15 p.m. on Sunday, followed by the concert at 6 p.m. Sunday; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. Christ the King Lutheran Church, 2353 Rice Boulevard. For information, call 832-314-2340 or visit apollochamberplayers.org. $30.
Also on Sunday is the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University's production of Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel (in German with English surtitles). This delightful cautionary tale by Humperdinck (no relation to the pop singer of the 1960s) tells the story of the Brothers Grimm fairy-tale characters who, sent into the woods to collect strawberries, are lured to the kitchen of a hungry witch. In a creative twist, the play has been set in the mid-20th century, with the witch being portrayed as a 1950s matron. The children are naturally drawn to the sweet-smelling kitchen, which leads stage director Pat Diamond to muse, "Things that you really want can turn out to be not so good!"
Diamond, who tells us his main artistic challenge was "finding the action in the music and narrative in the music," worked with conductor Richard Bado at the Aspen Music Festival in the past, is a freelance director with almost 20 years of experience. He lives in New York and was brought to Rice exclusively to direct this production. "It is wonderful to work with a group that is so accomplished and collaborative," he says of the opera students at the Shepherd School. "Rice produces amazing artists."
7:30 p.m., Friday, March 20; Tuesday, March 24; Thursday, March 26; 2 p.m. March 22. Rice University, 6100 Main. For information, call 713-348-8000 or visit music.rice.edu/opera/201415.shtml. $12.
Phaedra Cook, Sarah Gajkowski-Hill, Margaret Downing and Alexandra Doyle contributed to this post.
