In New York, just when the expected day when the Muññeira de Chantada in the Lincoln Center will ring out of his hand. Thus the bagpipe Cristina Pato (Ourense, 1980) received the news of the Castelao Medal that the Galician Government has agreed to grant him. His work for Galicia will be recognized alongside characters such as the historian Justo Beramendi, the eternal presenter of the TVG Xosé Ramón Gayoso, the chefs that make up the Group Nine and the Oceanographic Center of Vigo, founded in 1917 and today the most important Spain.
This afternoon at 8:30 pm New York time, that green-haired girl who at 18 became the first piper to make a solo album (Tolemia) will perform at the farewell concert of Alan Gilbert, artistic director of the New York Philharmonic, one of the most recognized orchestras in the world. For this final event of the concert A concert for unity, which has long exhausted the tickets, Pato will play with the famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma and with Gilbert the violin. They will also be accompanied by other musicians from The Silk Road Ensemble, the great multicultural training created by Yo-Yo Ma who has been awarded a Grammy and of which Pato is a member.
A concert for unity, a cycle divided into three sessions over two hours and backed by a symposium, has sought to create “cultural diplomacy” through music in convulsive times, both in the United States and around the world. The event was also attended by trumpeter Wynton Marsalis.
The fusion piece in whose heart the muiñeira will play, The Latina 6/8 Suite, was conceived by Cristina Pato as a transatlantic current that crosses from the south of Europe to America through the music that follows the same compass. Six by eight, common to the Galician muiñeira and the tarantella of southern Italy, is also present in traditional music from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia or Venezuela and typical European dances. A Pato, settled years ago in New York, has always called the attention that Manhattan called her “Latin” when she considered herself “Gallic.” That is why he commissioned the work, which flows between the two shores of the Atlantic, to his American friend Edward Perez, composer and member of Pato’s own group, Cristina Pato Quartet. Pérez will also play tonight alongside the gaiteira and pianista gallega.
At the Lincoln Center, reportedly from Pato’s surroundings, tonight the musicians will try to take the audience on “a journey through immigration” that “begins with the story of a poet from Al Andalus who arrived in Damascus” ( Ibn Arabi Postlude by Kinan Azmeh) and “continues with The Latina 6/8 Suite”. According to the theory of Cristina Pato, if the word “Latin” can define so many nations, a single rhythm as well. Within the program of this farewell concert of the artistic director of the New York Philharmonic will also be interpreted the Symphony number 7 of Gustav Mahler.
It is not the first time that Ourensana has performed with this orchestra. In February of 2015 became the first piper who did it, in a concert in which was interpreted Rose of the Winds of Osvaldo Golijov. Pato has just completed a tour of the Dominican Republic with Yo-Yo Ma, and this summer, in addition to returning to Galicia to participate in a congress of the Consello da Cultura Galega (A cultural industry in Galicia, no horizon 2025), he will visit Germany and in September will continue with the US tour of his own quartet and the last published album, Latina. In addition, he will continue his educational work as a “distinguished artist” in the Department of Music at Harvard University and in August will participate in a course in California in Santa Barbara