Mexican visual artist Gonzalo Lebrija’s work “often examines the contrariety contained by a moment, a tradition, or, in the case of his upcoming piece, Mariachi Wagner, a person,” writes Kellylouise Delaney in Tuesday’s (5/15) Art News. “Lebrija will have an all-women mariachi group play Wagner’s music [in] Mariachi Wagner … set to debut this month at the Moody Performance Hall as part of the three-week-long Soluna International Music & Arts Festival in Dallas, alongside performances by Nas and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra … held around the Texan city…. Lebrija’s show will consist of an hour-long set by Dallas’s only all-women mariachi group, the Mariachi Rosas Divinas…. The artist has collaborated with composer Jesús Echevarría to translate Wagner’s music … for mariachi instruments…. The band, whose members are all American descendants of Mexican parents, have channeled their love for their heritage into repurposing Wagner’s legacy with accuracy and the added soul of their own genre…. Lebrija’s … lighting … will simulate an evening’s darkness gradually brightening to dawn over the course of the performance. [Mariachi] songs… ‘are … about passion and crying…. Playing Wagner with the idea of a broken heart, it’s a different [musical] language. It’s not Wagner anymore.’ ”
Posted May 17, 2018
Pictured: The all-women mariachi group Mariachi Rosas Divinas, which will perform “Mariachi Wagner” at the Soluna International Music & Arts Festival in Dallas this month
