Birth Pangs in Costa Rica
The minister of culture, Carlos Echeverría, invited me to perform eight concerts with the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica in February 1990. Richard Fortin had just finished orchestrating Concerto of the Andes, which we had been working on together for the past year, meeting frequently to improve and tighten melodies, shape structure, and refine instrumentation. This would be the perfect opportunity to premiere our new opus, and Jim Hanley, of Sleeping Giant Productions, jumped at the chance to film it for a documentary.
Richard and I flew to San José, expecting to be met at the airport by a representative from the cultural ministry, as arranged. After an hour of battling crowds to retrieve our luggage, and having realized we were on our own, we dived onto the protruding seat springs of a taxi, where prerequisite white-noise radio and a dangling plastic Virgin Mary bewildered Richard; it was his first visit to Latin America. Our home for three weeks, the Irazu Hotel, was swarming with pasty Canadian tourists who made a beeline for the pool-side chaise longues to fry themselves with coconut oil in the equatorial sun, to the synthesizer serenades of “Spanish Eyes.” Not to be left out of this ritual, we, too, baked ourselves medium rare and suffered from our folly for days.
Because the regular conductor was away on leave, Benjamín Gutiérrez had been assigned the task of directing the seventy-five youthful members of the Costa Rican symphony orchestra. During rehearsals in a warehouse, Richard and I adjusted dynamic markings on the score while trying to teach Maestro Gutiérrez our intended tempos. As both orchestra and conductor kept dragging the rhythms, it became a challenge to keep them in time. Neither I nor the musicians could follow Gutiérrez’s elliptical arm movements — he flailed around like a discombobulated windmill. It came as no surprise when he admitted he was really a composer, not a conductor. Completely ignoring my suggestions, he looked only to Richard for directions. My astonished composer was advised by Gutiérrez that he “never take instructions from a woman. Females are pretty to look at, but know nothing.” During breaks, the orchestra implored Richard to take control of the baton himself, but having no experience in conducting, he declined.
The concerto, which Richard and I had decided needed much heavier orchestration than Rodrigo’s Aranjuez, was proving a challenge for the musicians, but they persisted. Gutiérrez’s role became increasingly redundant, and eventually the four movements started to take shape. Richard and I taped the rehearsals in order to listen back at the hotel for ways to improve or correct. The work itself thrilled me. The haunting spirit of the Andes Mountains had begun to permeate our concrete warehouse in the suburbs of San José. Members of the orchestra, impressed by Fortin’s writing skills, came individually to congratulate him, convinced that he must have spent time in South America to write so persuasively in the Latin American idiom.
Our first performance was to be held in the main church of Sarchi, a town one and a half hours from San José up grinding mountain roads. The film team arrived early with us in order to do a sound check, but mass was still in progress. Richard attempted to help the film crew hook up their mixing board, mikes, and monitors, which were incompatible with the church’s electrical outlets. As I sat tuning in the priest’s tiny bedroom, he dashed back and forth with desperate reports of his lack of success. “No worry, señorita,” one of the clergy reassured me. “All be very good by time you playing guitar.” Little did I know that as we proceeded across the country, we would be leaving a trail of blown fuses and distraught priests in our wake.
When I made my entrance, I saw with horror that my small podium and microphone had been placed several yards in front of the conductor, eliminating any eye contact between us. My chair had been positioned practically on top of Richard, who sat behind the mixing board with a terrified expression as I tapped the microphone and no sound came forth. During what seemed like an eternity, as men scrambled around on the dusty floor testing and reconnecting cables, a hand-wringing Gutiérrez repeatedly apologized to the public while trying unsuccessfully to stop the orchestra from whispering and fidgeting with their instruments like unruly schoolchildren.
Finally, from the sibilant speakers, a guitar-like sound could be detected. I threw myself into the concerto like a poorly armed foot soldier heading valiantly into battle, while Gutiérrez gave indeterminate entries to the various sections. His dragged tempos and lack of precision in the third movement resulted in the winds and guitar playing one entire measure ahead of the strings. Richard and I exchanged looks of disbelief as the conductor raced into the fourth movement at double tempo. Craning my neck backwards, I yelled desperately, “Más despacio — slow down!” over the orchestral din, which was amplified by the church’s resonant acoustics. When my entry came, I seized the opportunity to halve the tempo, playing with exaggerated rhythmic precision so everyone would get the message, but the inattentive percussionists raced onward at twice the intended speed and the trumpets and trombones panicked, blowing wrong notes, which added to the cacophony. Only during the last two pages did everyone come together. Gutiérrez, in his three-piece velvet suit, was dripping with sweat as though he had just finished a marathon. What an excruciating performance! I had done my part, memorizing my score perfectly; there was no excuse for all these errors. Following the orchestral debacle, I was thankfully called back for a solo encore by the appreciative audience, which consisted of local farmers, craftsmen, merchants, and their families. The film company had been crawling around with cameras, catching “interesting angles,” but I prayed that none of this traumatic world premiere would ever make it to the final cut. Richard and I commiserated that just as Thunder Bay had been our disastrous first concert of the Persona tour, Sarchi was its Costa Rican equivalent. We groaned in unison.
On the drive back to San José, our seasoned film director, Jim Hanley, and his assistant ended up in a ditch beside the road, throwing up and succumbing to a terrible bout of Montezuma’s revenge. Until Richard and I learned that they had consumed contaminated ice, we feared it was their gut reaction to the ignominious debut of our concerto! How were we ever going to whip the poor Andes into shape for a film to be shown to thousands of people? I lay awake that night, despondent; how could this wonderful piece of music be so mutilated by professional musicians? “Why did you take the fourth movement at double speed?” I asked Gutiérrez the next day. “Oh, I was angry with those women flute players and wanted to see if I could trip their fingers” was his astonishing justification. It was evident that the orchestra members had been disgruntled, talking during the concert and radiating more frowns than smiles; their manager was approached and soon the reason became apparent. The musicians were not being paid extra for the television rights, and felt inconvenienced by a film crew clambering around their stage with cameras and extension cords. The minister of culture decided to raise their wages and Hanley offered to throw a salsa party in their honour. The temperamental players were thus placated into making greater musical efforts during subsequent performances. It must be difficult playing in an orchestra for minimal remuneration under strenuous conditions while a soloist gets most of the accolades, but despondent musicians with an eccentric conductor can really get a new concerto off to a rocky start. At Hanley’s party, as I flung myself around to lively salsa music with one of the clarinetists and Richard shared rum punches with a pretty violinist, I sensed a shift in mood in the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica.
We presented our symphonic road show in the picturesque hillside towns of Pacayas and San Pedro de Poás, built on the slopes of the great Poás volcano. Some of our audience members had obviously walked for miles; farmers sputtered up on tractors and leathery-skinned men came in carrying sugar-cane machetes. Dozens of children attended the free concerts, looking with wide-eyed wonder at the musicians and their instruments. In the steamy Caribbean port of Limón, stray dogs greeted us as we pulled up at the ornate cathedral just in time to hear an evening mass that included ten guitar-strumming nuns singing Spanish hymns. I tuned my soggy guitar strings in the rear courtyard, where a darkened window improvised as my mirror. A winsome young priest with a golden smile swung his incense burner, billowing clouds of scented smoke into the humid air. These “backstages” were certainly more colourful that those predictable dressing rooms in North American theatres! When we arrived at the banana port of Siquirres, I was ushered into a locker room already occupied by ten tae kwon do students practising kicks and leaps. There was no option but to dress inside a dark closet and try to tune as best I could behind a crate that had been discovered by a few choice cockroaches. Ah, the glamorous life of a guest soloist!
While the crew filmed me playing my guitar on the beach the following day, I befriended two young boys searching for fish in the warm tidal pools and scampering along the sand like frisky puppies. Later, that footage was used in the music video for my composition “Fallingbrook Samba.” Jim Hanley interviewed me on camera as we careered along torturous mountain roads, and I tried to answer his questions on Central American politics and the role of music in society as we inhaled clouds of black fumes from the diesel trucks sharing our route. One shot required Richard and me to perform “Carnival” in the ornate lobby of the National Theatre, and another had us play it in the town square, where a large crowd of curious onlookers encircled us. The people of Costa Rica love guitar music, and wherever we played their enthusiasm was palpable. The locals taught me a popular song in La Esmeralda, a gathering place for San José’s mariachi bands, and I was suddenly back with our Mexican novios and the romantic mariachi serenades of my youth in San Miguel de Allende.
Five a.m. wake-up calls became routine, as Hanley sought to capture Costa Rica’s exquisite scenery during the hours of translucent morning light. After a three-hour drive from the capital, we spent the day floating downstream on a rubber raft, dangling our legs into the tepid water of Guanacaste as our cameraman shot footage of cheeky howler monkeys and iguanas basking along the tropical shores. The minivan made it back to the Irazu Hotel as dusk was descending on San José. At the last minute, I had been asked to play at the home of President Oscar Arias. In a state of panic, I jumped into the shower to scrub the river grit and suntan lotion off my skin. Itchy blisters from dyshidrosis, a skin allergy that always afflicts my hands in the tropics, had been adding distress to my fingers.
Two hundred animated guests were balancing cocktails and conversation in the courtyard. This was Arias’s farewell dinner for his party faithful, since La Libertad had recently conceded defeat. I had seen his face on the evening news so often: accepting the Nobel Peace Prize for his Central American peace initiative or crusading for co-operation among the unstable neighbouring countries that were torn apart by civil war and military coups. When we came face to face, I felt he had none of the charisma of Fidel Castro or Pierre Trudeau. His velvety brown eyes seemed soft and submissive, his weak, welcoming handshake gave no hint of the passion I expected from such a renowned political statesman. Margarita Penón, his attractive wife, on the other hand, was full of pep, skilfully working the tables and embracing her guests. She introduced me to the gathering by asking everyone to welcome their special invitada from Canada who had agreed to play at such a short notice — “Elizabeth Boyd”!
I played a few pieces while the film crew struggled to shoot me from the shadows. The president and his wife led the clapping and requested a couple of encores. Arias agreed to an interview with Jim Hanley in his private study, but first we were invited to partake of a buffet dinner. Plate in hand, I wandered around the Arias home, inspecting the various photographs that all world leaders seem to display on their walls — photos of themselves posing with other world leaders.
Jim was hoping el presidente would expostulate on his statement that “If humankind is to write its history with culture instead of blood, then I predict Costa Rica will play an invaluable role in the future of humanity.” The president stared blankly at the sentence, looking ill at ease; there followed an interminable silence as we waited for his words of wisdom on the subject of peace, the arts, and democracy. Arias shifted uncomfortably in his chair, explaining that he would prefer to talk about his government’s achievements — a subject I had heard him cover earlier in the evening during his farewell speech. He seemed tired and unfocused, perhaps from a too busy schedule or too many cocktails. Finally, as though in slow motion, he made a few desultory attempts at political philosophy, but soon lost his train of thought. I last saw Arias with his head down, backing out of the door and mumbling, “Lo siento mucho — I am very sorry. Goodnight.” It was a disappointment for our film, but even Nobel Prize winners have off nights.
After concerts in the churches of Turrialba and Tibas, we were ready for the National Theatre and the many government officials who would be in attendance. Costa Ricans are immensely proud of their Viennese-style hall, with its draped boxes, gilded pillars, and velvet curtains. There the excellent acoustics helped my guitar sounds blend in with the rich sonorities from the symphony.
The orchestra starts the first movement with whole-tone harmonics, evoking the grandeur and mysterious majesty of the Andes Mountains. The guitar enters with a series of strummed D-major chords that seem to introduce a human element into the natural setting. The characteristic Peruvian rhythms and harmonic progressions lend themselves so perfectly to the guitar, the instrument of their creation. The second movement combines a haunting melody with contemporary and impressionistic harmonies. At times, the guitar and oboe answer each other in lyrical dialogue, concluding with an exuberant melodic passage in which the entire orchestra participates. The romantic third movement features a solo cadenza, and lush strings support the guitar’s melody. Finally, in the last movement, Richard introduces dissonant harmonies and syncopated rhythms, leading to a playful percussion interlude where I contribute rhythm by tapping on the body of the guitar.
The orchestra, conductor, and I were drenched in perspiration by the end of the performance. Fortin’s compelling showpiece received a thunderous ovation from the full house. Edén Pastora, Nicaragua’s Comandante Zero, and his family came to offer congratulations, as did various guitarists, embassy staff, and delegates from the ministry of culture. How elating to realize that, in spite of its agonizing birth pangs, our Concerto of the Andes, composed by a French Canadian and performed by an English Canadian, had been so passionately appreciated by the people of Costa Rica.