CRESCENDO ENSEMBLE FROM CHILE TO NEW ENGLAND

Crescendo Ensemble Vocal Ensemble

Christine Gevert, is the founder of Crescendo a baroque/renaissance orchestra that has been performing in the Tri-State area for 18 years.  She was born from German immigrants who have been present in Chile for seven generations. Her passion for classical music started when she was just 5 years old. Christine started to take piano lessons and later she joint the local school chorus. In her earlier adulthood, she went to University of Chile in Santiago, to obtain a degree in professional organ player. Due to the Pinochet dictatorship era, she left her country to travel to Europe where she polished her education in classical music with a concentration on baroque and renaissance arts. 

In her adulthood, Christine came to the United States and in 2003 she founded Crescendo Ensemble. Her idea was to create a music program for high-performance musicians as Soloist and Instrumentalist in the Northwest part of Connecticut. Throughout the years, the organization has found support from the community from playing only for the local Trinity Church, to become an independent orchestra ensemble in the United States. 

Christine Gevert - Artist, musician, producer, director 

I found support in the community of Lakeville CT, and the Trinity church. Then the program became independent from the church, but we still perform there. 

Crescendo Ensemble performance 

Crescendo is formed from Chilean professional musicians, all from the New England area.  One of the most well-known members are

Alturas Duo with Carlos Boltes and Scott Hill. Another addition to the organization is by Andean musicians Gonzalo Cortes, and Ignace Ugarte.

We have Alturas Duo with Carlos Boltes, who is an expert in viola and charango and Scott Hill, who is a professional strings player. We have the orchestra Barroquito Andino as well. We all grew up in Chile, and we met here in the US. I was looking for musicians with that same type of heritage, so I found Carlos Boltes and his musical partner Scott Hill, who is Canadian,  but love Andean music. Gonzalo Cortes is a flute and quena player.The guest performant is my dear friend who lives in Barcelona, Ignace Ugarte; he is a talented quena player too and has played in Paris. 

Alturas Duo CT

Additionally, Crescendo Ensemble has 16 singers representing a small part of its chorus, which is a larger group, according to Christine.  The vocal ensemble is composed of senior, amateurs, and professional section leaders who will perform a part of the program in their upcoming concert.  The group is a local top leader in renascence polyphony music from Spain, as well as Latin American choral arrangements. 

Living in Chile, Christine felt always inspired by the beauty of Andean music.

Andean music is just too dear to my heart because I grew up in that heritage. As my childhood friends and I played guitar in our gatherings. We grew up during the dictatorship, and to play music during that time was very dangerous, but we did it privately, and it was really powerful.

For a long time, Christine has been singing and playing social activist songs and folk songs that were part of her culture back in Chile. 

Over the years, I found that our audience loves this music and enjoy listening to more traditional repertoires. Mainly our collection is showcasing Spanish polyphony music, which is very much like the Italian polyphony renascence. It is very important to expose our communities to our music and heritage. 

Christine Gevert- Chilean musical artist

Once in the US, Christine forged her way to play Baroque and renascence music, finding wonderful to showcase the talent and the musical culture of Latin American countries in the United States. Along the way, she met other Chilean musicians living in the New England area and was eager to ask them to join her repertoire. Deep in her core, Christine continues having the heart for social justice; she has been advocating for the Hispanic culture in her own most powerful ways through her music. 

Here in the US, the Latino/Hispanic is seen very little in terms of what we have to offer culturally coming from contemporary and folk poetry that gets featured alongside with the music. I think it is very important to show the communities in New England the richness we have; and also how we have suffered from colonization. In addition, we need  to teach that there are differences from Latin American countries, from Mexico down to Chile  and everything in between there is many different cultures

Crescendo Ensemble in CT

Although Crescendo has not performed internationally yet, its artistic components have performed in different European countries and South America. The ensemble has focused on preforming mainly in the Tri-State area, with a strong presence in Lakeville-CT, Barrington-MA, and New York City. 

We are a big organization with lots of members, and I can’t imagine traveling with our whole chorus. 

A significant accomplishment was met in 2014, when Crescendo was the recipient of the Chorus of American “Alice Parke/ASCAP award for innovative programming. 

I’ve been in Europe for 12 years, and I’ve performed very extensively in Italy and England and France, Holland, Denmark, and in South American Argentina and Chile.

Crescendo Ensemble and Alturas Duo 

Crescendo Ensemble will be performing its “Thanksgiving for Life and Love” featuring a repertoire of the late Violeta de Parra “Gracias a la Vida” song. Along with other significant Chilean musicians that reside in New England. The concert is on February 1 at the St. James Place in Great Barrington-MA, and on February 2 at the United Methodist Church in Lakeville-CT. 

Yes! It’s called thanksgiving for life and love. It is centered on Violeta Parra “Gracias a la Vida” song which is an iconic Latin American song which we will present in a choral arrangement and also with instrumental introductions, So this concert features the Spanish renascence music of Francisco Guerrero and Tomas Ruiz de Victoria, as well Alonso Lobo which they are iconic renascence composers. This music is complex but beautiful, and it transports you into a different state of mind. All the songs will perform are known for their social activism, call for action, and social change.

Christine Gerver, founder of Crescendo Vocal Ensemble in CT

Christine sees a bright future for Crescendo. She dreams of bringing her orchestra to Chile to perform for all audiences. Education for young talents is also part of her plans and is open to hearing proposals from different organizations to continue her work of art and music in the community. 

I see crescendo playing in different performances, but I also want to take Crescendo to Chile. It is my dream, not easy to accomplish because it requires a lot of finances. I also see us at the educational level, sharing our knowledge with young talents. I also want to bring my music to more museums and young children at schools, so we collaborated with the Rockwell Museum, and that was wonderful and, of course, continue bringing the beauty of our culture to benefit our communities. 

Cresccendo Vocal Ensemble

To buy concert tickets, please visit  http://worldclassmusic.org/buy-tickets/  or call (860)435-4866.

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