Corta-Jaca - Chiquinha Gonzaga, Arr. Alex Vittal | Sphere Ensemble

This piece was part of Sphere Ensemble's 2022/2023 season opening concert - Women's Work! This performance was recorded live from the Broomfield Auditorium [Broomfield, Colorado] on September 2, 2022.
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Program Note:
Francisca Edwiges Neves “Chiquinha” Gonzaga was born October 17, 1847 in Rio de Janeiro during the Brazilian monarchy and slave regime years. Her mother was a mestiza daughter of a slave and her father a military man of noble family.
Music was young Gonzaga’s passion and her instrument the piano. But at age 16, her father arranged her marriage to a naval officer, who disapproved of her music-making. After having three children together, he asked Chiquinha to choose between him and music. Her reply? “Well, sir, my husband, I do not understand life without harmony.” She left him, causing a scandal and her own father to disown her.
She threw herself into Rio’s music scene, starting work on what would, over a lifetime, become a catalog of more than 2,000 compositions, from Brazilian popular music genres to operas and theater works.
Gonzaga was the first Brazilian woman to succeed as a pianist and composer, the first woman to conduct an orchestra, the composer of the first song dedicated to Carnival, and the first female pianist of the Brazilian popular music genre of choro. She was also the founder of the Brazilian Society of Theater Authors, put into place to copyright and protect works by Brazilian
artists. She also fought for the rights of slaves and joined the abolitionist movement that took place during her generation.
In 1914, for the premiere of Corta-Jaca at the presidential palace, the first lady joined Chiquinha on guitar, playing an excerpt from the song. Bringing popular Brazilian music into the “cultured” halls of the presidential palace caused a considerable scandal at the time. Vittal’s new arrangement highlights the uniquely Brazilian take on the tango rhythm in Corta-Jaca.
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Executive Director: Alex Vittal
Music Director: Alejandro Gómez Guillén

Musicians:
Violin: Nina Fronjian, Sarah Whitnah, Sarah Cranor, Veronica Sawarynski, Mary Evans, Adrienne Short, Callie Brennan
Viola: Alex Vittal, Stephanie Mientka, Allyson Stibbards
Cello: Jake Saunders, Joey Howe
Bass: Forest Greenough
Conductor/Voice: Alejandro Gómez Guillén

Board of Directors:
Beth Rosbach, President
Saul Rosenthal, Vice President
Tyler Corson-Rikert, Treasurer
Terry McDonnell, Secretary
Jesse Werner
Claire McDonnell
David Alley

Videography by Owen Zhou, Opus Zero (http://www.opuszero.net)
Audio Recording by Kevin Harbison (http://www.thresholdaudiorecording.com)

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