Carmen-Helena Téllez

Conductor – Producer – Interdisciplinary Artist • A presentation site with notes about music, art and the occasional paradox

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Bernstein’s birthday and his legacy

August 25, 2018 by carmen helena tellez

  Today Google has a charming and ingenious homage to Leonard Bernstein, with  cartoons of him in action.  It is a good occasion to ponder the role of artists in our society–who gets to leave a mark in the culture, and is it always the one who eschews popular taste and sentiment for high academic complexity…or vice versa. I say, great music is not in the style…  https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=24&v=O8fQyb6tkdk

Categories: art and paradox, conducting, contemporary music, context affects perception, context and perception, music composition, new conductor, Uncategorized • Tags: high and low, Leonard Bernstein

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Mozart’s Magic Flute has an alter ego…

June 18, 2018 by carmen helena tellez

In the ongoing production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute at the Teatro Nacional Sucre of Quito, Ecuador, the opera takes a new garb in my transcription for an orchestra of Andean instruments, following the foundational concept of 2008 by the music director of the Orquesta de Instrumentos Andinos, Segundo Condor, who died without completing it.  The process enjoyed wonderful assistance by artists affiliated to the Teatro and the Orquesta, Tadashi Maeda and Leonardo Cárdenas, among others. The paradigm of the […]

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1968 and its impact…remembering a great conference

May 4, 2018 by carmen helena tellez

Last weekend, April 26-28, I was fortunate to participate as an invited presenter on Arvo Pärt in the conference “1968 in Europe and Latin America”, organized by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies at Notre Dame.  Brilliantly designed by Professor James McAdams, somehow the conference helped me understand the direction of my life and the values I hold. It was amazing to trade insights with a fantastic roster of speakers and engage in a conversation about Hans Werner Henze  with […]

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Artists and Parallel Universes…

January 4, 2018 by carmen helena tellez

It was only a matter of time that the brilliant music writer of the New Yorker magazine, Alex Ross, would address the  musical treatment of leitmotifs in John Williams’ music for the Star Wars movies. Perhaps there is more than just a musical homage of a living composer to the grand master of the Gesamtkünstwerk; it  may reveal Star Wars as a “total work of art”, collectively created under the vision of George Lucas. Just like Wagner’s serialized mythology in his  Ring operas […]

Categories: art and ritual, context and perception, gesamtkünstwerk, Uncategorized • Tags: space opera, Star Wars, Wagner's Ring Cycle

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Happy 2018!

January 1, 2018 by carmen helena tellez

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A beautiful way of describing the sacred purpose of art…

August 24, 2017 by carmen helena tellez

Historian Jaqui Shine pays a beautiful homage to both her mother and artist Mark Rothko in her meditation about Rothko’s site-specific painting installation named Rothko Chapel. She distills in surprising ways a description about art connecting with the sacred. Rothko’s visual work is so powerful that it spilled inspiration upon a musical work, composer Morton Feldman’s piece for chorus and instruments carrying the same name. I had the privilege of conducting it with Notre Dame Vocale and Ensemble ND at […]

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A composer and his way of praying

July 12, 2017 by carmen helena tellez

This lecture was given by Arvo Pärt during commencement at St Vladimir’s Seminary in 2014. He shared thoughts from his musical diaries. It begins with a most powerful question: Have you thanked God for this failure already? Food for thought, because we always must ask the question, what is Art for? http://www.ccwatershed.org/blog/2017/jul/6/most-sensitive-musical-instrument/  

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Context affects perception-a case in Wall Street

April 14, 2017 by carmen helena tellez

  An amazing example of how context and sharing space affect perception is playing out in Wall Street. When Arturo di Modica’s Charging Bull stood alone, it meant something to the passers-by. When Kristen Visbal’s Fearless Girl was placed next to it, now it means something else.  The energy is coming from the dialogue between the two statues. But –which of the statues keeps its specific message regardless of the context?  Check the article at Artnet.com

Categories: art and paradox, art and society, context and perception

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The re-birth of new opera

February 20, 2017 by carmen helena tellez

A few days ago I tweeted that 10 years ago I argued with skeptic colleagues — as I pursued my own experiments — that interdisciplinary musical works were going to become mainstream. I think this time is here.  Sometimes I feel we are again in the 1600s, with the birth of opera, and the Baroque style, and a new way of organizing music. Some will argue that we have a rebirth of the ‘happenings” of the 60s and 70s–but I venture to say […]

Categories: contemporary music, new opera and music drama, Uncategorized • Tags: Alex Ross, Ipsa Dixit, Kate Soper, new opera

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