Imagine sitting at the first performance of extraordinary music, knowing that you helped to drive the creative process.

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• Imagine sitting at the first performance of
  extraordinary music, knowing that you helped to
  drive the creative process.
•  
• Imagine this music celebrating women in
  Mexicohistorical, contemporary, legendarynative
  and foreign born.
•  
• Imagine bringing this music to audiences of all
  ages in Mexico, the U.S., and other countries.
•  
• Imagine receiving grateful recognition every time
  this music is performed.
•  

Imagine
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An extraordinary collection of new music for solo
piano by seventeen eminent composers from six
countries, each composition celebrating a woman
in Mexico.
SONG OF THE MONARCH WOMEN IN MEXICO
ANA CERVANTES, Commissioning Artist
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SONG OF THE MONARCH WOMEN IN MEXICO
Pianist Ana Cervantes named this collection of
new music for the Monarch Butterfly, a metaphor
for extraordinary courage and determination
inhabiting a seemingly fragile body.
Exquisitely beautiful Monarchs are uniquely
capable of 2,500 mile migrations mysteriously,
subsequent generations find their way back to the
same sanctuary in Mexico.
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Ana Cervantes Ambassadress for Music of Mexico

• Critics praise Ana Cervantes, Fulbright
  García-Robles Senior Scholar and Yamaha Concert
  Artist
• A physical, emotional performer with mastery of
  tone and color
• Commanding intensity
• Great interpretive qualities, and enormous
  passion
• Ambassadress for the music of Mexico

• The daughter of a Mexican father and US
  (Nebraska) mother, Ana has a special ability to
  serve as an interlocutor between cultures through
  her engaging performance style, imaginative
  programming, and her dedication to commissioning
  and performing new music.
• For Rumor de Páramo/Murmurs from the Wasteland
  (2006-7), Cervantes asked 23 composers from five
  countries and three generations to create piano
  solos inspired by the work of Mexican proto-magic
  realist author Juan Rulfo.

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Inspirations of Song of the Monarch Women in
México
Las Soldaderas were women who took up arms and
went into combat alongside men during the Mexican
Revolution. La Adelita, one of the most famous
and beloved folk songs to come out of the
Revolution, is about a soldadera of that name.
The term La Adelita has come to signify a woman
of strength and courage.
Born in Spain, Remedios Varo (1908-1963) aligned
herself with the Republic during the Spanish
civil war and went into exile in Mexico. Her
complex paintings integrate the mystical into the
modern secular world, combining stylized human
figures with archetypal dream elements.
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651-1695) A
precocious child, Juana entered the Convent of
St. Jerome, Mexico City, so that she could
dedicate herself to letters.Her literature
centered on freedom, challenging societal values
and church hypocrisies while the Spanish
Inquisition was raging. Eventually, the prelates
forbade her to write.
Carlota of Habsburgo (1840-1927) The Belgian
princess married the Habsburg Archduke Maximilian
of Austria and in 1864 they came to Mexico as
emperors. When Maximilian was shot by federal
troops in 1867, Charlotte went mad and lived the
rest of her long life secluded in Belgium.
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Inspirations of Song of the Monarch Women in
México, continued

• La Malinche (c.1496 or 1505 c.1529), known also
  as Malintzin, Malinalli or Doña Marina was born
  into a powerful Nahua family on the Gulf coast.
  When her father died, little Malintzin was sold
  into slavery and resold later to Hernán Cortés.
  Discovering that she spoke Maya and Nahuatl ,
  Cortés made her his companion, translator and
  guide to the Mexica culture. She bore his son,
  Martin, who is considered one of the first
  mestizos.
• Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) and The Blue House (La
  Casa Azul). Victim of an accident that left her
  lame, the artists immobilization allowed her to
  explore painting in depth. She married the
  muralist Diego Rivera, and lived a tumultuous
  story of love and passion. Her blue house was an
  organic part of her life the structure, spaces
  and colors of the house speak as much of Kahlo as
  her clothes, jewelry, and paintings.
• The legend of La Llorona, part of Mexicos
  collective imagination, fuses the pre-Hispanic
  myth of the woman cursed to wander the night with
  the Colonial myth of a woman who drowns her
  children and later wanders endlessly by the river
  looking for them. The Llorona evokes the Mexican
  figure of Death, the Skull, that wanders through
  the world provoking terror.
• María Sabina (1894-1985), a multi-talented
  medicine woman of the Sierra Mazateca, Oaxaca,
  allowed an American banker and ethnomycologist
  into a healing ceremony involving the use of a
  regional hallucinogenic mushroom. Suddenly, she
  became an international counterculture celebrity
  of the 1960s, attracting youth, rock stars, and
  exploiters. She was disheartened by the
  exploitation but her chants and poetry, using
  themes common to Mesoamerican spiritual
  traditions, endure.
• La Sandunga. Is she a woman become song? A song
  made woman? From the Oaxacan tradition and
  rhythmically a fandango, La Sandunga turns
  sadness into song. The name, derived from
  Zapotecan Saa (music) y Ndu (profound), signifies
  elegance, poise, charm, wit and celebration.

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The Composers of SONG OF THE MONARCH WOMEN IN
MEXICO

• All are internationally acclaimed.
• All have received numerous honors and
  commissions.
• Their works are in the worlds best-loved
  contemporary repertoire.

BRAZIL Silvia Berg blends tenderness and
strength in her music, always with profound
lyricism atop rigorous formal architecture.
COLOMBIA Alba Lucia Potes is a composer of a
subtle yet energetic style. Her music often
combines European influences with rhythms and
melodic gestures inspired by Latin-American
traditional music. EE.UU/USA Anne LeBaron
writes ritualistic music of excitement and power.
Her works embrace an extraordinary array of
subjects, ranging from contemporary adaptations
of Greek and South American myths to the
legendary Pope Joan. Joelle Wallach infuses her
compositions with vivid imagery of nature and
myth, creating intimate, persuasive emotional
landscapes. Charles B. Griffin often draws on
non-Western rhythms and textures to achieve
gripping, hypnotic, kaleidoscopic music for
Western concert instruments. Jack Fortner
composes dramatic music, often with complex
textures, of operatic impact.
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The Composers, continued ESPAÑA/SPAIN Tomás
Marco composes profoundly expressive, deceptively
simple music of great refinement and economy of
means. Carlos Cruz de Castro is a prolific
composer of energetic, generous music for an wide
variety of contexts including dance. Pilar
Jurado, acclaimed opera singer, composer and
conductor, she imbues her works with
extraordinary emotional range. MÉXICO Marcela
Rodríguez, a dean of Mexican women composers,
creates music with gripping use of rhythm and of
silence in the magical village of Tepoztlán
outside of Mexico City. Georgina Derbez, one of
Mexicos most active composers, creates music
which is at once austere and profoundly sensual.
Gabriela Ortiz achieves an extraordinary
synthesis of highly organized structure and
improvisatory spontaneity to create music that is
entertaining, profound and sophisticated. Mario
Lavista, Mexicos emeritus composer, explores
beautiful, mysterious, and even mystical
sonorities in his works. Horacio Uribe, draws
richly on elements of Mexican folklore to create
exuberant music bursting with color. Arturo
Márquez composes music that embodies profound
lyricism and passion with subtle yet powerful
rhythmic impetus. REINO UNIDO/UK Paul Barker
Theatrical performance plays a prominent role in
his music, which is ecstatic, profound, sonorous
dramatism. Stephen McNeff composes achingly
beautiful, heart-arresting, evocative music.
Despite a focus on opera and music for the
theater and voice, he has written important solo,
chamber, and symphonic works.
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• The creation of any art is, in its essence, a
  mystery and a miracle. For me as an interpreter
  it is a privilege to be a part of this mystery by
  inspiring new music.
• To commission music is to help it come into
  being, to act as a sort of midwife of musical
  creation.
• 
  Ana
  Cervantes

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Reaching audiences...

• International Cervantino Festival, Guanajuato
  Capital, México, October 19, 2010-- World Premier
  performance of selected works from Canto de la
  Monarca Mujeres en México/ Song of the Monarch
  Women in Mexico.
• University of Texas, Dallas, October 28, 2010--
  U.S. premiere of selected works.
• Leon Mexico, November, 2010-- Premiere in León.
• Concert tours of Latin America, Europe, and the
  U.S. throughout 2011.
• Double disc recording of Canto de la
  Monarca--approximately 140 minutes total
  time--due for release in early 2011.
• Educational programs and concerts for young
  audiences in major Mexican and U.S. cities,
  throughout 2011.

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Educational Outreach

• SONG OF THE MONARCH WOMEN IN MEXICO will provide
  multi-dimensional learning opportunities for
  students in Mexico and the U.S. In educational
  concert-conversations with young people, Ana
  Cervantes will describe the women who inspired
  the music and explain the musical themes chosen
  by the composer to represent each woman.

• Cervantes educational concert-conversations with
  young people will take place at museums such as
• De Young Museum, San Francisco
• Mexican Cultural Center of Chicago
• Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico
• Museo del Barrio, New York City
• Museo del Caracol, Mexico
• Museo del Papalote, Mexico
• Museo Iconografico del Quijote, Gto., Mex.
• The Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.

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• Participating in this Creative Process
• You will discover that there is nothing like
  sitting in a first performance and realizing that
  your appreciation, your love for great,
  meaningful new music drove the whole creative
  process.
• Much of the music we love today was created
  through commissions, by the generosity of patrons
  like Brandenburg, who is known today because of
  Bachs chamber concerti.
• Today, most commissions come from groups--from
  major symphony orchestras, opera companies and
  chamber ensembles--and are financed by
  organizations and governments. Very few soloists
  and private patrons commission works of music.
• Ana Cervantes is involving not only governments
  and organizations as sponsors but also
  individuals as patrons of Songs of the Monarch.
• You will know that you are helping to reinforce
  and preserve images of women who have overcome
  obstacles and defined new spaces.
• You will be instrumental in presenting this Good
  News story about Mexico to multinational
  audiences of both sexes and all ages.
• You will have participated in creating a musical
  legacy to future generations.

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Patrons Gifts

• The total cost of underwriting Canto de la
  Monarca is 75,000 US dollars. This includes
  honorariums for the seventeen composers,
  bilingual educational materials and various
  production costs.
• Please join these generous Patrons of Song of the
  Monarch Women In México
• A.J. Buckingham Jill Lipoti Brad Garton
• Marie Chevrier Paul Jarkowsky Luis Yamín
  Martínez
• Harold Sue Davey Clair Ransom Roger Thorpe
  
• Miriam de Uriarte Dianne Romain Sterling
  Bennett
• Rodolfo Hernández Guerrero Jean Schwarzbauer
  Don Winkelmann
• Fay Jones Marilyn Leigh Stowell
• Ruth Lindstrom Cynthia Wolloch Joseph Reid
• Marc Smith Steven Lightner Sandra Ward Ron
  Mann

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• Receiving grateful acknowledgment for your gift
• Your name will appear, with grateful recognition,
  on all concert programs and in the CD liner
  notes. You will also be recognized on Ana
  Cervantes website, on the page dedicated to
  generous patrons.
• You will receive complimentary CDs, signed by Ana
  Cervantes with her thanks.
• In addition, for participation in the amount of
  5,000 USD you will receive
• Complimentary tickets to performances,
  preferred seating.
• A limited edition Canto de la Monarca bowl,
  designed by Gorky Gonzalez, the prize-winning
  ceramicist of international renown, recognized by
  the Mexican Government as an outstanding
  national treasure.
• Donations up to 5,000 USD may be made on-line
  via credit card
• Donations may be made on line through Fractured
  Atlas, a U.S. non-profit (501c3) organization
  that facilitates support for worthy artistic
  projects. These donations are tax-deductible to
  the extent permitted by law. The address
  designated for donations to Canto de la
  Monarca/Song of the Monarch is
• www.fracturedatlas.org/site/contribute/donate/3065
  

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Ana Cervantes - Biography and discography

• Critics praise Ana Cervantes as a physical,
  emotional performer with mastery of tone and
  color, as an artist of commanding intensity
  and great interpretive qualities, enormous
  passion, and as ambassadress for the music of
  Mexico. The daughter of a Mexican father and
  American (Nebraska) mother, Ana has a special
  ability to serve as an interlocutor between
  cultures through her engaging, charismatic
  performance style and imaginative programming,
  which pairs new works with standards.
• As a commissioning artist, Ana Cervantes has
  inspired major collections of works by eminent
  composers. Canto de la Monarca Mujeres en México
  / Song of the Monarch Women in Mexico is her
  current international commissioning project. For
  Rumor de Páramo/Murmurs from the Wastelandand
  the resulting CDs Rumor de Páramo (2006) and Solo
  Rumores (2007)Cervantes commissioned 23
  composers from five countries and three
  generations to compose a short piece for piano
  solo inspired by the work of great Mexican
  proto-magic realist author Juan Rulfo. In 2003,
  Cervantes was awarded a grant from the Mexican
  National Fund for Culture and the Arts and the
  Guanajuato State Institute of Culture to realize
  Agua y Piedra/Water and Stone Recent Music of
  México, a recording of music by seven Mexican
  composers, three of them women, and the premiere
  recording of six pieces.
• In 1999, as a Fulbright García-Robles Senior
  Scholar, Cervantes developed a repertoire of
  contemporary Mexican concert music and brought it
  to audiences in the USA she received an
  Individual Artist award from the Bossak-Heilbrun
  Charitable Foundation (USA) to continue this
  work. Premiering music of US and Mexican
  composers, Cervantes has performed at many
  festivals including numerous editions of the
  International Cervantino Festival and the XV and
  XVI Festivals of New Music of La Habana. She has
  partnered in residency with numerous institutions
  including the Organization of American States,
  the Catholic University of America, the National
  Museum of Women in the Arts (U.S.) and the
  Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington, D.C.
• An alumna of Bard College, Cervantes has served
  on the artist faculty at Princeton University, at
  Rider University's Westminster Conservatory, and
  at the Music School of the University of
  Guanajuato. Ana Cervantes maintains an active
  schedule as a performer and teacher,
  internationally and in Mexico. At home in
  Guanajuato City, she collaborates artistically
  with the chamber ensemble Ehecalli and on
  projects with the Institute of Culture of the
  State of Guanajuato.

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• Cervantes makes evident her love and her almost
  symbiotic relationship with the musical soul and
  the emotional content of every work.
• Eduardo Soto Millán, Proceso, Mexico.

CDs available through Amazon.com,
cervantespiano.com, and classicalcds.net.