Musical Performance Visit Project

On the night of January 24, 2008, I attended the IU Art Museum’s Coffee House Night expecting to attend a performance featuring a musician who is a master of the Zimbabwean hand piano. Upon my arrival I discovered that the musician reported to be performing that night was unable to do so. Instead I stumbled upon a one man performance of Latin classical guitar, which is a form of music to which I had not been greatly exposed. The musician’s chair, Marshall Amplifier, and a couple of weathered, acoustic guitars of an unknown brand were set up in a rather central area of the second floor of the IU Art Museum. Surrounding the musician were a large array of sculptures and paintings depicting Buddhist and Hindu deities. It struck me as being rather curious that a Latin guitar performance was taking place in such a setting, but I can only presume that this was probably due to this particular section of the second floor having the most open space for him to utilize. The guitarist was a male of about 35 years of age who was of European descent and was dressed in a black suit, which seemed to match his long, dark hair that he had tied back in a ponytail. Many students and other patrons of the museum were present and were engaged in viewing the displayed works of art. Many passed by the scene of the performance, but only a few seemed to take any notice of the guitarist.

The guitarist played a variety of fascinating classical songs which struck me as being possibly of Spanish or Italian in origin. He rapidly plucked and strummed each successive note with his quite long fingernails. Each song differed greatly from every other he performed despite the fact that they were composed of what I presume were derivations of musical scales. Each song had definite divisions based on the progression of rhythm and note patterns. These subparts of each composition were further emphasized by alterations in tempo and mode of strumming or plucking of each note. Each song varied in length, structure of the progression of each segment of the music, and general sonic atmosphere produced.

After forty minutes or so of performing, the guitarist took a break and talked to a few of the nearly onlookers. I used this opportunity to ask him a few questions and gain more of an understanding of his art. He identified himself as Atanas Tzvetkov, a PhD candidate in the IU School of Music from Bulgaria. He informed me of the origins of many of the songs which he performed, and also told me the address of his website, where some of the compositions were identified. He said that the original context of what he played was that they were written during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by a number of known composers from various parts of Eastern and Central Europe who based all of their works on traditional Latin folk music. Atanas seemed to indicate that though professional musicians composed these works, it did not differ from the original style of Latin tradition. It seems that though this is deemed by many to be a type of folk Latin music, many composers have embraced the style and have allowed this form to continue and progress in a professional as well as a folk context.

This blog entry is my 1st Encounter Project: Musical Performance Visit.