Cuatro Corridos Timeline and Events
Cuatro Corridos week-long residency at Yellow Barn in Putney, Vermont brought together a remarkable group of individuals for an integral step in the project's development.
Soprano Susan Narucki, pianist Aleck Karis, guitarist Pablo Gomez, percussionist Ayano Kataoka, librettist Jorge Volpi, and composers Hilda Paredes, Arlene Sierra, Lei Liang and Hebert Vázquez came together to focus intensely on the musical preparation of Cuatro Corridos in advance of its world premiere in San Diego in May, 2013.
The residency was supported by the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS) as well as the University of California and Yellow Barn.
The Cuatro Corridos Yellow Barn Artist Residency culminated with a performance of excerpts from the chamber opera on March 30, 2013. The performance was followed by a panel discussion about the collaborative process and the role of art in society. The performance took place at Next Stage, Putney, Vermont.
Cuatro Corridos had its world premiere at the Experimental Theater of the Conrad Prebys Music Center at UC San Diego. The fully-staged, one-hour production featured UC San Diego Department of Music faculty soprano Susan Narucki, pianist Aleck Karis, percussionist Steven Schick, and guitarist Pablo Gomez.
In addition, two public forums were held May 9th, 2013 at the Department of Music, UC San Diego.
An 11 a.m. panel discussion featured Jorge Volpi, Susan Narucki and all four composers in a conversation focused on the development of Cuatro Corridos and its place in each artist’s larger artistic concerns.
A second forum at 2 p.m. included Mr. Volpi and distinguished community leaders who address the reality of human trafficking in the San Diego/Tijuana border region. They were: Elizabeth Aguilera, reporter from San Diego Union Tribune, Coleen Lassegard, Caring Residents of Carlsbad/La Posada Homeless Shelter, Daliah Setareh, Senior Attorney at Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles and Dr. Jay Silverman, Professor of Medicine and Global Public Health at UCSD.
Cuatro Corridos had its international premiere in at the Casa de la Cultura, Tijuana, B.C. in September 2013 . The opera was presented with support from the MAP Fund and IMAC (Institute Municipale Arte y Cultura) and Casa De La Cultura. The opera was was preceded by a public forum on human trafficking.
Critically acclaimed Tijuana filmmakers Miguel Buenrostro and Sergio Valdez created a short film which captured the event.
To learn more about the panelists and their work and to see the film.
Cuatro Corridos was performed at Nasher Sculpture Center's critically acclaimed series Soundings: New Music at the Nasher. Soprano Susan Narucki, pianist Aleck Karis, guitarist Pablo Gomez and percussionist Ayano Kataoka were the performers. A public forum on human trafficking featuring Bill Bernstein and Tasha McGhie of Mosaic Family Services followed the performance.
The performance earned critical acclaim in D Magazine and Theater Jones and was named one of the top ten performances in Dallas for 2013.
To learn more about the event and to watch videos of the forum with Mosaic Family Services.
Cuatro Corridos was the centerpiece of the 2014 John Donald Robb Composers' Symposium at the University of New Mexico. The opera was performed at 7:30 p.m. on April 7 at the newly restored South Broadway Cultural Center, and included a forum on human trafficking preceding the performance moderated by Peter Gilbert.
Panelists included Lynn Sanchez Program Director for Life Link's Anti-Human Trafficking Initiative, Maria Sanchez-Gagne, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the New Mexico Attorney General and Border Violence Division Director and Susan Tiano, Director, Latin American and Iberian Institute, University of New Mexico and Leading Scholar on Human Trafficking.
The symposium, organized by UNM Professor Karola Obermuller and composer Peter Gilbert was a multi-day event which included discussions on the music of our time and beyond that, the role of the arts in contemporary society.
To learn more about the events and to listen to the public forum
The non-profit organization, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles presented Cuatro Corridos on August 8, 2014 at 7:30 p.m atZipper Hall at the Colburn School of Music in downtown Los Angeles. The critically acclaimed opera was followed by a post performance reception; the opera was cited as a Critic's Pick of the Weekend by the Los Angeles Times and a feature article by LA Times Cultural reporter Carolina Miranda.
Celebrating its 85th anniversary, The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA) is one of the oldest and largest nonprofit, public interest law firms in the USA. It serves more than one million poor and low-income people in the greater Los Angeles area and has worked tirelessly on behalf of victims of human trafficking.
LAFLA’s Executive Director Silvia R. Argueta said of the event, “We feel that Cuatro Corridos is a beautiful, engaging, and innovative way for our organization to draw attention to this critical issue.”
To view the Photo gallery of the event and to learn more about LAFLA
Cuatro Corridos was presented in the Teatro de las Artes, Mexico City for three performances May 15, 16 & 17, 2015.
One of Mexico City's premiere venues, the 600 seat theater is housed within the Centro Nacional de las Artes (CENART). The May 2015 series of performances will be the second international presentations of Cuatro Corridos and marks the second anniversary of the project's premiere.
Cuatro Corridos received extensive media coverage ; the first performance was streamed live. Subsequently, the opera was the subject of a feature article in the July Issue of Siglio Nuevo . It was filmed for television and has been broadcast numerous times on CANAL 22 (Mexico).
Cuatro Corridos was performed at the Guadalajara International Book Fair/Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara on November 30, 2015 at 9 p.m. in the Teatro Diana, one of Guadalajara's premiere cultural performing arts venues. Over one thousand people were in attendance.
The Guadalajara International Book Fair is the most important book fair in the Spanish speaking world and is second only to the Frankfurt International Book Fair in its size and scope. Cuatro Corridos was one of several special performing arts events presented by the conference.
Internationally renowned writer Jorge Volpi presented his newest work, a full length novel based on his libretto of Cuatro Corridos. In addition, the conference held an International Symposium on Border Security and Human Rights as one of its activities.
To learn more about the performance at the International Book Fair (FIL)
Cuatro Corridos was presented in Bowker Auditorium at UMASS Amherst for one performance on October 4, 2015 at 4 p.m.The eleventh performance of the critically acclaimed chamber opera was preceded by a panel discussion, The Reality of Human Trafficking. Lauren McCarthy, UMASS Amherst Assistant Professor of Legal Studies and author of the recent book Trafficking Justice, served as moderator. Panelists included Julie A. Dahlstrom, Clinical Legal Fellow at Boston University and Quinn Kepes, Program Director at Verité, an organization dedicated to fair labor practices worldwide, and Dan Johnson from Freedom Cafe, a student run cafe that supports anti-trafficking efforts from proceeds of its sales. The2 p.m. panel discussion was free and open to the public.
Hear a transcript of the panel discussion and learn more about the work of the panel participants.
The UMASS performance of Cuatro Corridos was supported by an ARTWORKS grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Department of Music at UMASS Amherst.
Originally developed at the University of California at San Diego, the chamber opera, Cuatro Corridos returned for one performance only in the Conrad Presbys Concert Hall on Wednesday, January 13, 2016 at 7 p.m.
Cuatro Corridos is one of many international events taking place during January, 2016, designated worldwide as Human Trafficking Awareness Month. Since its premiere in May 2013, the opera has traveled to Los Angeles, Dallas, Albuquerque, Amherst (MA), Tijuana, Guadalajara and Mexico City. The San Diego performance marked the thirteenth performance of the opera since its premiere in 2013.
Cuatro Corridos was recorded in 2016 on the Bridge Records label with Grammy Award winning producer Adam Abeshouse.
The recording earned critical acclaim in the United States and abroad , with positive reviews in Gramophone, Musical Opinion, San Francisco Classical Voice, Fanfare and Opera News, among others. The recording earned a 2017 Latin Grammy Nomination.
The recording of Cuatro Corridos, released on Bridge Records in 2016, earned a 2017 Latin Grammy nomination in the Best Contemporary Composition category, for Hebert Vazquez’ stunning “Azucena”. 2017 Latin Grammy NominationOPERA NEWS - "CRITICS CHOICE"“… In the first monologue, with music by Hebert Vázquez, we hear from Azucena, a prostitute. The piece starts as a Mexican folk ballad, a simple waltz tune on the guitar, with an overlay of creatively dissonant piano. After two stanzas, however, it turns ominous and distorted. “Off you go, daughter,” Azucena recalls her father saying. The music is still rhythmic, but syncopated, jagged and much more discordant. It’s like warped calypso music, mirroring the horrible life into which the young woman is about to be forced. There’s a return to the more comfortable rhythm and harmony of the beginning, but then it turns slow, shard-like and menacing with rapidly oscillating guitar figures, bowed marimba and insinuating upper register piano figures. After a Bartókian frenzy for piano and percussion, the cheery song accompaniment returns in E major, and it’s devastating…”
Cuatro Corridos will be featured in the inaugural season of the Ent Center for the Arts at University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, with partial support from the National Endowment for the Arts. The performance will featured the , Susan Narucki, Aleck Karis, Ayano Kataoka and Pablo Gomez, with technical direction by David Espiritu.
Following the performance,Susan Rawfer and Lauren Vitiello, two senior administrators from the Asylum Office, USCIS, led a discussion about the realities of human trafficking in the United States and how those effected are helped by the asylum process. We are deeply grateful to them for their generosity and the insights they shared.
“After five years, fourteen performances and an award winning recording, the critically acclaimed opera has come to a close. It remains one of the most meaningful projects that I have ever participated in and I am still learning from the experience. I thank all those who participated in and supported the project, in ways great and small. “ - Susan Narucki
In 2011, Susan Narucki, Pablo Gomez and Jorge Volpi had a series of discussions about the possibility of creating a work for voice and instruments in response to the increasingly difficult conditions at the U.S. Mexican border. Volpi had come across the story of the Salazar Juarez Brothers, an infamous human trafficking gang who brought young women from Tenancingo to serve as prostitutes for migrant workers who picked strawberries in the fields north of San Diego, and proposed the idea of telling a story about four different women, whose lives were intertwined in one tragic incident of human trafficking.
Cuatro Corridos was originally conceived as a song cycle for soprano, guitar, percussion, funded by a grant from UC MEXUS; though major philanthropic support from the MAP Fund, the scope of the project was expanded into a chamber opera format.