Lokkal- todo SMA

There's a story – perhaps true, perhaps not – about Beethoven, aged 16, meeting his idol, Mozart, in Vienna. The year was 1787. Beethoven was a big deal back in his native town of Bonn, but Mozart was not easily impressed by young piano prodigies, having been one himself. As the story goes, Beethoven played some flashy showpiece for Mozart, and noticed that the man he idolized was unmoved. Desperate to make an impression, Beethoven begged Mozart for a theme on which to improvise, and Mozart obliged. That did the trick. “Mark that young man,” Mozart is supposed to have said. “He will make a name for himself.”

Historians disagree on whether that encounter in Vienna actually happened. No one disagrees, however, that Beethoven was one of the most skilled piano improvisers of all time. And for at least a century after Beethoven, classical pianists continued to improvise with proficiency. Then came jazz, and for some reason, improvisation became the province of the jazz pianist only. Nowadays, when a classical pianist, such as Venezuelan-born Gabriela Montero, includes improvisation in her program, it is cause for awestruck admiration.

The brilliant Mexico City pianist Daniel Wong, who will be making a rare appearance in San Miguel, at an October 19 benefit concert at the Bellas Artes, falls into that increasingly rare category of pianists who cannot be categorized. “I have never seen a dividing line between classical music and jazz,” Wong says. “For me, there is only music.” Wong is professor of jazz piano at the prestigious Escuela Superior de Música, the Mexico City conservatory from which he himself graduated with degrees in jazz and classical piano. Among his thirteen CDs, there are solo jazz albums and jazz piano trio recordings, along with disks including works by Ravel, Stravinsky, and Prokofiev, in collaboration with the Orquesta de la Opera de Bellas Artes and the ensemble Tempus Fugit. The Sinfónica Nacional recently commissioned and premiered his original composition Chorinho Perpetuo. In 2014, Wong performed and recorded with double-bassist Eddie Gómez, a jazz legend.

Wong has toured around the world – from the Americas to France, Indonesia, Singapore, and back – and in his hometown of Mexico City, his concerts are avidly attended by jazz fans. “You can’t miss a Daniel Wong concert!" says Mexico City jazz vocalist Iraida Noriega, whose own appearances in San Miguel are consistently sold out. “You will be transported to another world.”

For his Bellas Artes concert, Wong is appearing with two local audience favorites, José Luis González Chagoyan, a/k/a "Hopalong," on bass, and Victor Monterrubio on drums. Wong and Hopalong met in 1990 when the both performed with John Hager’s big band Brass Explosion, and have been friends and collaborators ever since. “Our concert at the Bellas Artes will consist of music in the classical sense of jazz,” Hopalong says, “in the style of Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, and Thelonious Monk,” and will include both original compositions and jazz standards.

The concert, scheduled for 7pm on Thursday, October 19, at the upstairs performance space at the Bellas Artes, on Hernandez Macias, will be the latest installment of the Steinway Series, concerts in support of Libros para Todos, an outreach program to promote reading, with a focus on children and young adults. (Visit makingreaders.org for more information.) Advance tickets are $250 pesos ($300 pesos at the door on concert night), and are on sale at Solutions (Recreo 11); and online at steinwayseries.com.

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