BCS Argentina
Monte Caseros
Encuentro Coral
International de Ninos y Jovenes
August 17-19
2013
Music and
oranges are everywhere in Monte Caseros. Streets teem with choruses from
throughout the region; choral songs pour out into public courtyards where the
choruses are rehearsing; and townspeople hum the songs they are hearing
throughout their small town of just 7000 people. The many hand-made banners
that flutter across dirt streets and that mark rehearsal and performance spaces
show that this Encuentro Coral International is a bit like bringing the
Olympics to town. The whole town turns out in support, often armed with boxes
of mandarins as gifts to share with the choruses.
The festival
director Paula Eberhart, an American who is married to a local rancher,
enthusiastically greeted us the first night of our arrival with news of the
festival and boxes of sweet local mandarins. She told us that the festival is
usually held in October, when the weather is warmer and the regional choirs are
more fully rehearsed, but well after the local orange season. With news of our
trip, however, she moved the date two months earlier to coincide with our
visit. The bonus effect of that shift in date is the mandarins, which tumble
from trees in a profusion of orange balls. “You are so lucky to be here at this
time of year! It is our citrus season and you are about to taste some of the
best in the world.” As we bit into one mandarin after another, we knew that she
was right. Florida should watch out for the Corrientes growing region of
Argentina.
Across the sunny
flats of Corrientes province, the agricultural epicenter of Argentina, local
schools and community choruses look forward to the Encuentro Coral. These
children of farmers, ranchers, agricultural distributors, and government
workers, come to the festival annually to share their music and techniques and
to learn from each other and from a featured conductor. Money is tight in Argentina and inflation is
rampant. Choruses scrape money together little by little throughout the year to
join this big sing. With the shift in date from October to August, some
regional choruses were unable to join, not having enough time to finish
fundraising for their travel. The choruses that could fund the trip doubled
their rehearsals to be well enough prepared to show their repertoires off to Pablo
di Mauro, a celebrated choral director from Buenas Aires, who joined the
festival as the featured conductor. He, too, said that he shifted his schedule specifically
to join the festival three months earlier than he had originally planned. The
XVII annual Encuentro Coral was not to be missed.
Local families also shifted their daily schedules
to welcome our singers. Festival director Paula Eberhart leveraged her
connections throughout the town to match small groups of singers with local
English teachers and chorus members, allowing our singers to learn the rhythms
of daily life in this small town of about 7000 people. Walker, Josh, and
Patrick stayed with the Piloni family, who raise cattle and grown citrus on
their extensive estancia. Their farm dates back to their Italian ancestor who
came to Argentina over a century ago when land was cheap and immigrants with
grit and farming know-how could carve out prosperous new lives. Today, the
family sells their citrus abroad, coincidentally exporting it as far away as
Italy. Their kitchen is piled high with crates of mandarins—so delicious,
Patrick says, that "you beg for another!" Each morning, they squeeze
the mandarins into fresh orange juice and serve it with farm fresh eggs,
purchased from their neighbor. After breakfast, each family drops their singers
off at the central rehearsal space, where the chatter of teens comparing notes
on their wonderful families overtakes yawns from late nights. For every singer
the warm hospitality of “Mi casa es su casa” made the homestays four of the
best nights we have spent in Argentina.
The music of the Encuentro Coral is also filled
with the warmth of people who are friends first and singers second. Although
nearly every moment of the day was occupied with one kind of workshop or
rehearsal, singers stumbled through conversations in “Spanglish” to build
strong friendships with the Corrientes singers. Conductor Pablo di Mauro worked
with all the groups to help them extend their repertoires, including the
American spiritual “He Hasn’t Failed Me” and a moving rendition of “Gloria.” In
concluding performances on both Saturday and Sunday nights, all ten of the
choruses crowded together shoulder to shoulder on the stage for thrilling
performances of these songs under Pablo’s direction. The whole town had turned
out for the concerts and was swept away in the thrill of well over a hundred
voices in harmonious song.
The festival ended late on Monday with final
communal concert at the local hot springs.
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