Serralde seeks to strengthen the INBAL Music Coordination with a collective vision

▲ José María Serralde is determined to strengthen ties with the community and build bridges with the new directors and the artists' programmatic visions , he said in an interview with La Jornada. Photo by Roberto García Ortiz

Angel Vargas

La Jornada Newspaper, Tuesday, May 6, 2025, p. 5

Appointed to the position at the end of October, conductor José María Serralde's first look at the helm of the National Coordination of Music and Opera (CNMO) was not to make a diagnosis, he says, but rather a kind of celebration, of reunions and very beautiful processes .

Six months later, he acknowledges that it has been an arduous process that has even kept him awake at night, but he is very satisfied with it after laying the general foundations for the program that this department of the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (INBAL) will continue to pursue in the future.

In an interview, the pianist (Mexico City, 1974) also previews part of this year's programming; he emphasizes that, based on understanding the historical dimension of this coordination, the decision was made to strengthen ties with the community, build bridges with our directors and with the programmatic visions of our artists , and design the programming in a more horizontal manner.

It is in the interest of the director of Inbal, Alejandra de la Paz, and the (federal) Ministry of Culture, that the CNMO carry out these conversations, this sort of amalgamation of thoughts, visions and meditations around music and its programmatic lines , she explains.

So, coordination seeks to strengthen itself through collective vision. Of course, it must design programmatic approaches, but the methodologies for building them are based on deconstructing previous approaches, this long period of vertical programming. Although we are the ones designing, the interesting thing is how we arrive at that design. My focus, then, is on opening reflection to communities.

He says that in these first months he spoke with the artistic directors of that organization, and I discovered that there are already installed capacities and magnificent ideas that can be turned into programmatic lines and axes throughout the year .

The CNMO is made up of 42 concert performers from various fields, including a wind quintet and a string quartet; 18 solo singers of various ranges; and two vocal groups: the Soloists' Ensemble and the Madrigalists' Choir.

Among the results of these collective practices, José María Serralde highlights that some of the cycles that the coordination previously carried out for a few days have now become part of the annual program.

These are the cases of the new axes: Música Antigua Inbal, Jazz Inbal, La Guitarra Hoy and Música Mexicana Recuperada, in addition to onomastic cycles that are inserted within these axes, such as Palestrina 500, dedicated to the greatest exponent of Renaissance polyphony within Música Antigua Inbal, or the Julián Carrillo 150 cycle, in collaboration with the National Center for Musical Research, Documentation and Information (Cenidim), within the axis Música Mexicana Recuperada.

According to the official, the decolonial vision will occupy a prominent place in INBAL's musical meditations , which will focus on the music of Europe not from the center, but rather from Europe, centered on Latin America, the global South; the music of the South and the visions that deconstruct this normative vision of programming from Europe .

In the first half of the year, the CNMO will perform approximately 350 concerts, spanning 16 states in Mexico City, as well as Mexico City, where it will collaborate regularly with 22 organizations. Starting in 2025, five new alternative venues will be available in the nation's capital: the Museo Vivo del Muralismo, the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, the Palacio Legislativo de San Lázaro, the Italian Institute of Culture, and the Network of Theaters of the Mexican Social Security Institute.

Among the activities highlighted by the official is the concert in May by the Madrigalists' Choir and the Bellas Artes Chamber Orchestra featuring Bach's St. John Passion , conducted by Johannes Pramsohler, a renowned violinist and conductor specializing in historically informed performance.

Also on June 28th is the concert in which the Latin American Quartet and the Bellas Artes Quartet will perform all of Silvestre Revueltas's quartets, to present the Cenidim edition of these works.

The first National Meeting of Concert Music Programmers and the Meeting of Independent Concert Music Editors will also be held, in addition to a new series to foster intergenerational dialogue: "Coffee Talks: Among Singers," which took place in March as part of the International Women's Day activities.

The summer will be dedicated to Young Performers, students from the National Conservatory of Music and the INBAL School of Music, as well as groups from other schools that will be curated by the institute's student body.

In addition, from a new perspective , the CNMO's signature annual activities will be held, such as the Manuel Enríquez International New Music Forum, now in its 47th year; the fifth Contemporary Music Marathon; the Inbal-SACM Conference; and the 11th Angélica Morales National Piano Competition.

José María Serralde dismisses the idea that this is a change of perspective: We are creating or seeking to create common ground through programmatic exercises, little by little; this isn't an overnight process .

She clarifies that the focus will change: This means creating, through coordination, focal points so that our attention shifts elsewhere. The result will be a set of changes in which we will expose practices that have served no purpose, such as the invisibility of women in music, as well as among national composers of both genres.

▲ Photo AFP

La Jornada Newspaper, Tuesday, May 6, 2025, p. 5

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