Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Festival de Música de Cámara en San Miguel de Allende

One of the highlights of the summer season here in San Miguel is the Chamber Music Festival that takes place in late July and early August.  The series features a number of chamber music ensembles and soloists and has been presenting the festival for 29 years.  If you wish to learn more about this festival you can access their web site by clicking here.

One of the main locations for the concert series is the Teatro Angela Peralta, which always has banners and other signs for the concert series as you can see below.

Teatro Angela Peralta 1

Jo Ann and I live out in the compo and do not come into San Miguel often as we do not like driving at night.  However, this year one of the events were being held at the Santuario in Atotonilco.  This church is a world monument as designated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and is part of a submission to have both the town of San Miguel and the Santuario designated as a World Heritage location.

The concert at the Santurio features the Rossetti String Quartet and was held in one of the chapels of the Santuario that had recently been renovated.  The chapel was absolutely stunning in its beauty.  The ceiling murals looked like they had just been painted and all of the artifacts were like new.

I did take a number of photos of the concert, but I have to apologize in advance, the lighting was very low and I had to take the images only by hand holding my camera, which does not have any image stabilization.  So with the apology out of the way, here are some of the images from the Santuario.

Inside the Santuario en Atotonilco

 

 Ceiling Murals en Atotonilco 1

 

 Ceiling Murals en Atotonilco 2

 

 Ceiling Murals en Atotonilco 3

So yes the ambiance was beautiful, but how was the music and the acoustics.  The music was absolutely wonderful and the acoustics were as if the chapel had been built for musical concerts.  Both Jo Ann and I just loved the concert and the setting.  Here is a image of the Rossetti String Quartet as the return from one of their breaks between performances.

 Rossetti String Quartet

I can only hope that the festival will return with another venue to be held in the Santuario next year.  I really recommend that people should go and enjoy these concerts, they are superb.

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