The New Mexico Museum of Art will celebrate its 100 year anniversary in November of 2017. The St. Francis Auditorium was built as part of the Museum in order to provide the community and traveling visitors a place to enjoy music concerts, lectures and theatrical performances. A traditional New Mexico church-like setting, in a secular space, the St. Francis Auditorium continues to be a gathering place for concerts, lectures, slide and video presentations, literary events, seminars, and workshops. As we prepare to celebrate 100 years, we are offering programming that represents a broad range of cultures and time periods.
Sombras del Pais (Shadows of the Country) will reintroduce audiences to a native son of New Mexico, Felipe Delgado, and his accompanist, Anna Maude Van Hoose, who were popular performers in the 1930s. In recreating programming performed by the duo, audiences will enjoy popular music of the time, as well as Spanish and New Mexican folk music. The program represents an instance in New Mexico’s multicultural history when Anglo and Hispanic audiences alike came together to hear these vibrant musical traditions.
Sombras del Pais, a lecture-performance, tells the story of the musical duo of Felipe Delgado (1899-1940) and Anna Maude Van Hoose (1884-1960), who toured the Southwest throughout the 1930s, performing the music of Spain, Mexico, New Mexico, Argentina and California, all sung in Spanish. Delgado, a native of Las Vegas, New Mexico, had made a name for himself in Hollywood and in radio as the featured soloist in a nationally broadcast radio program, Media Hora Espanola, when he began performing with pianist Van Hoose. The duo performed throughout the Southwest, including three recitals at the St. Francis Auditorium of the New Mexico Museum of Art.
Their musical collaboration was successful in part because of the times in which they lived. Hollywood in the twenties had popularized Spanish-speaking stars, Spanish-influenced music, and Spanish-language films, and this popularity continued into the thirties. Delgado’s radio success was an outgrowth of this phenomenon.
Additionally, the audience will hear music performed in the very same space, St. Francis Auditorium, as those ‘30s concerts. By the end of the performance, they will have a sense of the remarkable music that no doubt helped people cope with the challenges of the Great Depression.
$10 admission, VIP $20. Tickets at the door, cash or checks only.
