¡Viva la Música!

Well, today is the first official day of summer. Yesterday was the same pattern: cloud over and a few sprinkes at 5, then clear up. However, during the night after 3 a.m. extended rain and thunderstorm. On investigation in the morning, no leaks except for a tiny bit of moisture in one spot. My theory is that during the dry season, the wood dried out and shrank, leaving a couple of small cracks for water to come in. However, with the start of the rainy season, the wood has soaked up moisture, swelled up and sealed the cracks. On another note, Bijou seems to be recovering nicely, although she has gotten sick a couple of times from the antibiotics.

Sunday afternoon, we are going to a piano recital put on by ¡Viva la Música! [By the way, that is the correct way to do exclamations and questions in Spanish--an inverted exclamation or question mark at the beginning and a regular one at the end.] We shall probably join Viva. It is putting on 5 concerts during the summer featuring muscians from Gradalajara. They also arrange bus trips in to Guadalajara, usually involving dinner and a concert. There is an extraordinarily rich cultural life in Guadalajara at various concert halls around the metropolitan area; the English language weekly newspaper has long lists each week of various events. They look very interesting, but the mechanics of finding our way is too daunting. Going on an organized bus trip would take most of the hassle of getting around such a huge metropolitan area, finding parking, etc. Viva also provides scholarships for students from the Guadalajara areas to continue their musical studies in Guadalajara or US universities. It also supports the Northern Lights Festival in February when Canadian musicians come down to give concerts in the Lake Chapala area and master classes for advanced students in Guadalajara. Viva is only one of several cultural organizations in the area, including theatre. There seems to be a lot to do here.

Mexico has long fostered and honoured its visual artists, much more so than Canada does. There are large numbers of galleries and public buildings are adorned with murals and statues. I’ll talk more about this in a future post as I am just learning about it myself. There is also so much historical tradition to be explored and learned about. There is absolutely no reason to be bored, not that anyone who lives here complains of that.