LA FIESTA MEXICANA (Mass & Aztec Dance)
THIS IS BASED ON AZTEC, ROMAN CATHOLIC AND MARIACHI MUSIC AND SUBTITLED 'A MEXICAN FOLK SONG SYMPHONY'. WRITTEN BY H. OWEN REED (1949) ON A GUGGENHEIM FELLOWSHIP IN MEXICO. PERFORMED MY 1ST YEAR AT THE NATIONAL MUSIC CAMP BY THE ALL STATE H.S. BAND.
highschool bands
jazz bands
college bands
all region bands
community bands
concert bands
honor bands
interlochen arts academy
marching bands
national music camp
tmea all state bands
university bands
Story behind the song
Reed's best known and most widely performed work is the three-movement concert band composition La Fiesta Mexicana (1949), composed with the support of a Guggenheim Fellowship. The work is based on Aztec, Roman Catholic, mariachi, and other musics Reed heard while in Mexico City, Cuernavaca, and Chapala, Mexico for six months (1948-49). He returned to Mexico in 1960 for a month's further study. He has also studied folk music in the Caribbean in February 1976, and in Norway in the summer of 1977.
La Fiesta Mexicana, subtitled A Mexican Folk Song Symphony for Concert Band, depicts a religious festival dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Faithfully representing all of the festival's moods, the music is both comical and solemn, devout and pagan, boisterous and tender.