Adios, Nuestra Musica
EDITORIAL
There are a couple of things to say about the news that after 16 years, Santa Fe’s Nuestra Musica concerts of traditional New Mexico folk music are coming to an end.
One is that Jack Loeffler, one of our town’s true renaissance folks, and co-director and college teacher Enrique Lamadrid deserve the community’s thanks for organizing the concerts at the Lensic for so many years.
The second is that it’s sad to see the remarkable shows stop, and that it’s good to know others may take up the mantle of trying to bring back Nuestra Musica, or something like it.
The standard highlight of the concerts was a chance to see folk legend Cipriano Vigil in action. Loeffler, in a profile by the Journal North’s Jackie Jadrnak when Loeffler was honored at Nuestra Musica 2015, cited as a favorite Vigil’s “Se Ve Triste el Hombre” (How Sad the Man), about how privatization of resources after the influx of Anglos disrupted local cultural practices based on shared land and water.
And you could see Vigil perform on one of the cigar-box guitars that he shows schoolchildren how to make (or you could buy one).
Then there’s El Trio Jalapeño con Antonia Apodaca, led by the irrepressible accordionist and fireball singer. There are those of us lucky enough to have seen her in action at small venues like a restaurant in Española, but she’s been great on the Lensic’s big stage, as well.
Sixteen years is a short amount of time by Santa Fe standards, but Nuestra Musica already had become a cultural touchstone here. With luck, a new generation will figure out how to renew this important musical tradition.