Hello for today I am in class during Max Gradisher's presentation. He is presenting a lot of music from different cultures and countries. He presented two pieces one by Rafael Mendez from Mexico and one by the tenThing Brassensemble playing Carmen Suite by Bizet. With the Carmen Suite taking place in Spain, that draws a connection between these two pieces of sharing the Spanish Language, so the theme of today's blog is Spanish Music.
The first piece was composed by Rafael Mendez for him and his twin sons Rafael and Robert all playing trumpet. The piece is called Tre-Mendez Polka. Rafael Mendez is known for his incredible range and technique. He has recorded and popularized many pieces such as La virgen de la Macarena and Flight of the Bumblebee.
The second piece is by Georges Bizet. He wrote his Carmen in 1875, it is an opera based in Southern Spain, the story follows a solider and Carmen through their love and trials. Tine Thing Helseth a Norwegian trumpet player arranged this recording for the tenThing Brassensemble. This ensemble was founded by Tine Thing Helseth, it is a ten piece all female brass ensemble. They are celebrated for their great outreach and diverse repertoire.
Finally for today's board game, I picked a game that although is not from Spain or Mexico, it is from Puerto Rico, so the rules are in Spanish, so i thought it would match the vibe of today's post. Puerto Rico is a complicated game where players take turns assuming different roles such as farmer, mayor, builder, artisan and captain. When you are a certain role, you either build farms, put workers on the farms, build buildings, make goods or sell goods for either money or points. Each of the buildings helps you either get more goods, or more points, or more money to buy more buildings. The game requires a lot of strategy, as there is a lot of options of buildings, farms and goods to chose from. Chose correctly and you might just win.
I hope you enjoy today's music and get a chance to play Puerto Rico.
I think it’s cool that you were able to find a game made outside of North America or Europe to go along with the pieces that Max chose for the presentation. I’ve never been one to play traditional table top strategy games, but I like playing strategy video games. I like more methodical games like these, because like with practicing my horn, sometimes things work better and I take the time to think about concepts that I’m working on.
ReplyDeleteThis game reminds me a lot of the Sims video game, where you build your civilization. It almost seems like a precursor to Catan, and I wonder if the two influenced each other in any way. As for the music, I think it pairs especially well with this game as many different time periods are represented, just like how in the game many time periods are covered during the growth of the city.
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