Description
Cantando en la Ciudad de los Angeles -- Christmas Villancicos by Gaspar Fernandez in Viceregal Mexico offers a vibrant re-creation of the Christmas villancico tradition as heard in early seventeenth-century Puebla Cathedral, where Fernandez served as chapel master. Rooted in historical evidence, it reveals how these works combine popular poetry, dance forms, voices of diverse origins, and devotional expression, bringing to light a repertoire of remarkable linguistic, melodic, and expressive richness.
Concerto Scirocco, directed by Giulia Genini, brings its expertise in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century instrumental repertoire, while the singers of La Boz Galana lend particular sensibility to the prosody and expressive force of these Hispanic Golden Age poetic texts. Both ensembles perform under the artistic direction of Sebastian Leon.
Conceived as the musical companion to Mexican musicologist Ireri E. Chavez Barcenas's book Sounding Race, Identity, and Devotion in Puebla de los Angeles (Oxford University Press, 2026), this recording invites renewed listening to this extraordinary repertoire.
