www.newsok.com 2003-03-17 By Brittney Guest The Oklahoman

EDMOND -- When Carlos Sanchez was 6 years old, he attended a musical performance in his native country, Venezuela, that would cultivate a lifelong passion for one instrument.

The first time he heard it, he knew he liked the sound of the trumpet, and one week later, his father took him to a conservatory to begin lessons.

His passion has earned 14-year-old Sanchez, now a student at Bishop McGuinness High School in Oklahoma City, the Young Artist Award from the International Trumpet Guild.

The award is designed to recognize high school students for their talent and accomplishments with the trumpet, said James Klages, Sanchez's trumpet instructor and professor of trumpet at the University of Central Oklahoma.

Klages said Sanchez was chosen because of his age and the caliber of his performance.

However, there could be one more reason -- Sanchez plays in three college musical groups.

Although Sanchez is a member of the Oklahoma Youth Symphony, his participation in UCO's Jazz Band II, trumpet choir and summer concert band have set him apart and provided invaluable experience.

"People get confused because they think I go to the university, but I'm not," Sanchez said. "I go to high school."

Attending McGuinness, playing the trumpet three to four hours a day and performing across the country makes for a busy schedule for Sanchez.

Despite the schedule, Sanchez has found time to improve his English.

When Sanchez and his family came to Oklahoma to escape a failing economy and unemployment, he knew little English.

That barrier did not exist with the trumpet, and Klages said Sanchez is "confident" and "fearless."

However, playing continues to present him with challenges. Sanchez admits he still has much to learn about the trumpet.

Playing with the jazz band has given him the opportunity to expand his knowledge of the instrument, he said.

Jazz has taught him to improvise -- or invent music on the spot.

It is hard because knowledge of scales is needed to improvise, Sanchez said.

The scales are musical tones arranged in order of pitch.

Klages said Sanchez has a good sense of phrasing.

"He doesn't just play a series of notes," Klages said. "He takes a series of notes and makes a sentence. He's a musician."

www.newshax.com Posted by Big Brother on 2003/3/17 3:25:14 (95 reads)

(NewsHax wire) Observant readers of the weeks upcoming television listings point out that the publication has revealed the start date for the war: Wednesday, March 19 at 8EST/5PST, the time set to kick off the FOX Networks new spring comedy and reality show lineup. (more...)

FOX won the contract to exclusive interviews with the big stars of the war as well as winning the bidding for the exclusive broadcast rights of the opening salvo. Both auctions were sealed bid auctions and the price will not be revealed as customary.

However the start of the war was just revealed by TV Guide, as sheceduled by FOX owner Rupert Murdoch."We have an all-star lineup scheduled for Wednesday evening, starting with back-to-back Simpsons followed by a half hour introduction special and then the actual war will begin, live on FOX." said NewsCorp Chairman Rupert Murdoch, obviously giddy in eager anticipation of the coming week.

"We will also be debuting our newest reality show during a scheduled TV timeout in the war that will start in Iraq and will be called 'Escape from Baghdad', where we give 12 contestants nothing but a Confederate flag T-Shirt, pocketless speedos, $5 and a pair of flip-flops to start out, with the ultimate goal of reaching New York harbor and with no help from anything or anyone, just them and their wits.", Rupert added as he gushed in glee during promotion of his newest show.

Scheduled for the TV war timeouts during the weekend are several timeless WW2 movie classics, combining high profit war ad time with royalty-free public domain movies. Said Brian Upshaw, programming director of CBS, "FOX really scored a coup here, we don't know how they could have outbid everyone for the war but they are going to make alot of money from it now. We are all jealous, they could make record profits over the coming weeks."

www.miami.com Posted on Sun, Mar. 16, 2003 BY ELISA TURNER and DANIEL CHANG elisaturn@aol.com

In the past decade, Miami has become the international stage of choice for contemporary artists and galleries drawn by the city's reputation as a center of Latin American culture and commerce.

A new wave of artists and curators have relocated to South Florida. Dealers and fairs have followed suit and infused Miami with the promise of becoming a capital of contemporary Latin American art.

But whether South Florida can fulfill that potential is open to interpretation. The region remains hindered by the absence of a major museum collection that regularly showcases Latin American art, the conservative tastes of local galleries and collectors, and the lack of a research center turning out groundbreaking scholarship and exhibits.

What's more, some see no glory in the label ''Latin American art'' and others challenge its accuracy in an era when contemporary art has shed nationalist tendencies and adopted a global identity.

Still, South Florida's influx of Latin American artists, galleries and curators has created the momentum for a movement, as evidenced by the latest fair to showcase the genre -- arteAméricas Miami 2003 -- which debuts Friday at the Coconut Grove Convention Center.

''Miami's on the radar now,'' says curator Sylvia Karmen Cubiñá, who has been busy assembling exhibits in Miami's Design District since she moved to South Florida from Puerto Rico in fall 2002.

''It used to be more of a South Beach scene,'' Cubiñá says. Now the city can be a place that ``will not only be a commercial scene with buying and selling, but where people will create and ideas will boil.''

For years, Miami has been home to collectors of works by modern masters such as Wifredo Lam, as well as galleries that represent a range of contemporary Latin American art, but with a heavy emphasis on more traditional painting.

But Miami's new love affair with Latin American art is due, in part, to increased immigration from South America. An influx of émigrés from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela and elsewhere during the past decade has made Miami a synthesizing frontier where contemporary Latin American art can thrive unencumbered by nationalism or tradition.

''I think that's one of our strengths,'' says Miami Art Museum associate curator Cheryl Hartup. ``Miami has a strong international mix.''

FEELING AT HOME

Milagros Bello is an art critic and judge on the selection committee for arteAméricas Miami 2003, which will feature works from 15 U.S. galleries and 30 from the Caribbean and Latin America.

Bello describes a local art scene that thrives at the intersection of two of South Florida's overriding themes: tourism and immigration.

''People who come here on business or to shop, they run into a museum or know someone who has art from another country,'' she says. ``That's where the interchange happens, with business and culture and vacations.''

As a city not bound by decades-old conventions, Miami also offers creative freedom and opportunity, says Odalis Valdivieso, a Venezuelan artist who moved to South Florida a few years ago.

''We were tired or bored in our own countries, or [left] because of social and political situations,'' says Valdivieso, who has been showing her large-scale drawings at Locust Projects and other local venues. ``Now we are here to do what we couldn't do over there.''

LOCAL CONSERVATISM

Some artists, though, see a conservative, even staid, bent in the local art scene. Maria José Arjona, a performance artist who moved to South Florida from Bogotá, says Art Basel opened Miami's eyes to a variety of art from the rest of the world.

Yet, Arjona says, ``a lot of people are willing to see oil paintings on canvas, but forget about drawings or whatever is new.''

Some even argue that the term ''Latin American art'' is limiting and clashes with the international realities of Miami and of the contemporary art world.

Fred Snitzer, owner of Fredric Snitzer Gallery in Miami, represents some of Miami's best-known Latin American artists, including Cuban-born painter Jose Bedia. Snitzer believes there's too much passing for Latin American art.

''In many ways Latin American art is a catchall for anything in Latin America and there's a wide range of quality in terms of that,'' Snitzer says. ``There's very, very good art being made in Latin America and there's tons and tons of garbage -- decorative, sort of not interesting work. Maybe its only promotional value is that it's Latin American.''

Another local dealer takes issue with a fair being marketed as only for Latin American art, insisting that ``regionalizing contemporary art today doesn't have any meaning.''

OPENING DOORS

But as a young city increasingly open to more experimental work Miami has opened new doors for artists.

Artist and curator Robert Chambers, for example, presented Arjona's work at the Bass Museum of Art in 2001, and that led to an invitation for her to perform last fall at Exit Art in New York.

South Florida still lacks the hallmarks of a true capital of Latin American art, namely a pace-setting research center and a museum where a range of artists can be seen regularly -- though current shows at the Lowe Art Museum, MAM and the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale do feature a variety of work by artists from Latin America.

Hartup, the associate curator at MAM, says more should be done. ''Miami doesn't have a big presence in Latin American art discourse, in terms of scholarship and organized exhibits,'' she says.

Perhaps Florida International University could build upon lectures and courses offered by professors Carol Damian and Juan Martinez and contribute ''more programming, faculty positions, and recruiting [of] top students,'' Hartup said. ``It's just a natural.''

RACIAL EVOLUTION

If the nation's demographics are any measure, it may be a matter of time before art from Latin America becomes second nature.

As Hispanics become a larger part of the nation's population -- and as countries like Mexico become important trading partners -- many are discovering a taste for Latin America.

Gregorio Luke, director of the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, Calif., sees the preponderance of Latin American art as an indicator of America's ethnic and racial evolution.

''What is really going on and nobody wants to call it by its name but what you're really looking at is that the U.S. itself is becoming Latin American,'' Luke says. ``What is the essence of Latin America? It's a simple thing. It's the mixture of races that does not exist in the North.''

Such attitudes point to a sea change in the art market, where a younger generation is more accepting of the diversity of Latin American and contemporary art.

Because of that change, Coral Gables gallery owner Gary Nader no longer will host an annual Latin American art auction. Instead, Nader says, he will participate in fairs that feature a range of international artists.

''Before it was only Cubans buying Cubans, Venezuelans buying Venezuelans. That was the norm, and now it's the exception,'' Nader says. ``Now people want to have a more open collection. Globalization has taken over.''

www.vheadline.com Posted: Friday, March 14, 2003 By: Thais J. Gangoo

VHeadline.com lifestyle correspondent Thais J. Gangoo writes: A short word that brings the spice to our lives!  

There's no night life in Caracas without a cold beer ... no one of ever knew how important it was for us until last December when it practically disappeared from our kitchens, discos, supermarkets and even liquor stores, giving the chance to our traditional “Guarapita” to show up again more than ever before. Of course, no one could find our queen, so people started inventing all kinds of cocktails so they could enjoy at least a nice “Dominoes game” during the strike.

 A couple of months ago, people would pay up to Bs 3,000 for only one beer. Right now we can find a beer for even Bs 350each!  No wonder now the streets of Caracas are full of people from all ages after 12 in the morning hanging out with their buddies, drinking beer, dancing and having all the fun they missed during the strike. Although, asking for a beer has become not an easy task for some. There are so many options to order a beer. And it has been the idea of the owners of many places located in Caracas so people can keep their pockets from being empty. We can see them served in big jars, buckets, bottles and all kinds of containers. We can enjoy a beer in so many ways!

What about those Venezuelans who life overseas?  Can they find a “Birra” wherever they are?

In many places around the world people can ask for one and experience the taste our cherished beer ... I'm pretty sure our VHeadline.com readers in the US can find it easily because I did, when I lived there ... you guys are going to love it!

Beer is one of the most famous beverages in the world and it has become one way of helping people to celebrate any occasion  and relax. Now, here comes a question: What is it in beer that makes it so special? Beer is just a mixture of some barley, hops, water and yeast besides those special other ingredients each company has. Going through several steps until we get the final product delivered anywhere we are ... the “Birra” ... that’s how we call it in Venezuela, our faithful friend anytime. Moreover, there are many facts about beer that we don’t know about.

For instance…  Did you know that...

Just like cereals, beer is a rich source of B vitamins ?

Drinking a bottle of beer a day can reduce the risk of kidney stones about 40%?

The first to brew beer where the Egyptians?

It takes 1500 gallons of water to make 1 barrel of beer?

Beer is less fattening than milk?

In the Andes, a corn based beer called Chicha is produced by allowing Amyltylic Enzymes in human saliva to break down starches into sugars?

The world Guinness World Beer record in 1979 was reached when Steven Petrocino drank a liter of beer in 1.3 seconds?

Isn’t that interesting?  We all drink it if not every weekend once in a while, but maybe some of us didn’t know these facts about beer. I'm pretty sure there is still a lot more information about it.

After midnight… 

Last week, I was invited to go out to a well known place located in Las Mercedes. For all our VHeadline.com readers who don’t know ... Las Mercedes is like South Beach for all the “Caraquenos” ... it's the neighborhood where all the streets are decorated with lights and all kinds of designs specially made for the discos, pubs, and restaurants there. Places for all tastes ... from the most elegant places to the informal cafeteria ... and, if you're lucky enough, you get to see the stars from the TV shows and even famous characters we have seen on the news lately...

Sometimes our eyes are not fast enough to see the newest bikes and cars that some like to show off when they go out ... people go to Las Mercedes to have fun, and show off what they've got!

It’s the place to be … if you want to be seen!

Get the party started…

After-hours making calls and deciding what time to meet in that place, we finally got there. We had agreed that we would meet there at 10 o’clock, however, just like most Venezuelans, some of our friends got there after 11 or so. It is funny, but some things we’ll never change, and one of them is the quality of being late sometimes when we go out to party.

When we got there, the place was empty ... for a moment I thought people were not going out as much as before for any reason, and I truly couldn’t believe it. Venezuelans like to party no matter what! Anyway, we ordered a bucket-full of beers and waited for the others. Of course we couldn’t forget the popcorn and the chicken wings!

Amazingly, the place was packed after almost 1 o’clock in the morning ... people do go out and they do enjoy it!

Later and later each day, and I keep wondering why ... why do we go out that late, when we could go out earlier and have more time to have a blast?

That’s a good question that some of our VHeadline.com readers might like to wonder about ... try to answer and even help me understand.

After a few hours, we left the place and drove around the city. Oh, what else can we ask for? At that time you can see it all you have never seen before; from some silly fights to the newest romance being born. You can even seen others helping their buddies get back on their feet or get them into a taxi, making sure they get home safe.

Of course there is a sad side to the story too … a little girl, or a little boy, selling flowers and all kind of things to bring home some money, and even a homeless person looking inside a trashcan to get something to eat. Sadly, there is always the other side of the story.

Before going home…

At the end of the night (or should I say the beginning of the day?), it's impossible to miss an “Arepa,”  a “Cachapa,” or even a hot dog on the street ... that’s the best part for some Caraquenos … there nothing like having a great time with your buddies drinking beer and dancing ... and then before going home, to have “Breakfast” around 5 o'clock.

Hopefully, we all remember what we did the night before, after we wake up. And believe me ... if we don’t. that means we probably had such a great time. Don’t think too much about the hangover you probably got thanks to the “Birra.” We all wish to have a delicious soup waiting for us to start the day again and wait for our welcome Monday!

There is no doubt about it….

“Venezuelans bring the spirit to the party, and the beer is the Queen of our weekends!”

www.calendarlive.com By Agustin Gurza, Times Staff Writer

Decades after socially conscious rock transformed pop culture in the U.S., singer-songwriters with a point of view are climbing the Latin pop charts once dominated by cookie-cutter romantic crooners. Raised on rock en español and rooted in the folk rhythms of their native lands, this new wave of Latin pop stars is transforming public tastes and even revolutionizing this country's Spanish-language radio, a stubborn bastion of conservative and formulaic music.

Although the change has been gradual and tentative, its arrival was telegraphed dramatically with this year's Grammy nominees for best Latin pop album. All five contenders -- Jorge Moreno, Donato Poveda, Sin Bandera, Diego Torres and Bacilos -- are new arrivals who write their own material.

"People understand that we're in need of change and in need of moving ahead," said Jorge Villamizar of Bacilos, the multinational folk-pop trio that won the Grammy last month. "The thing is that Latin music in the United States has been driven by nostalgia for whatever was in fashion at the moment the immigrants left [their homeland]. Now, there is movement of making new music in this country, a meeting point of different cultures."

The Latin American songwriting movement actually caught fire decades ago across the continent, fueled by a liberating '60s spirit and desire for social change. But political repression and marketing forces muffled that era's powerful voices in favor of harmless and homogenous pop.

Today's resurgence is tied to the spread of political democracy, and especially the impact of Latin America's feisty alternative rock scene, which prizes native genres just as the rock revolution in this country drew from U.S. folk music and the blues.

Like Villamizar, the front-runners of the youthful trend are from Colombia. Singers Shakira and Juanes, who both broke big internationally last year, are the first major pop stars to emerge from Latin America's vibrant but commercially marginal rock and alternative music scene.

Shakira may not be the most inspired songwriter, and Juanes may have had to tone down his angst and anger for the sake of airplay. But their success proved that Latin artists with a personal style and strong identity could break through to reach a mass audience.

And others quickly followed.

In recent months, singer-songwriters and their groups have popped up on the Latin pop sales charts -- Guatemala's Ricardo Arjona, Mexico's Sin Bandera, Argentina's Diego Torres and Miami's Bacilos.

Arjona, a veteran songwriter, scored his first No. 1 hit this year with his bitter take on heartbreak, "El Problema," from his new album "Santopecado." Though his work can be poetically pretentious, Arjona's album includes a chilling song called "La Nena" (The Girl), a stark narrative about one of Latin America's greatest evils, kidnapping for ransom.

"There's more room now for artists who are trying to express certain things," Arjona said in a phone interview from his home in Mexico City. "Having a hit doesn't depend so much anymore on the fashion of the day or a catchy chorus or a handsome face."

History of political repression

In Spanish, there's a special term for singer-songwriters, who are known as "cantautores," a contraction of the words "cantante" (singer) and "autor" (composer). The tradition of the guitar-carrying troubadour who philosophizes, politicizes and waxes poetic in song is deeply rooted in many Spanish-speaking countries.

The global rebellion of the '60s gave rise to the so-called New Song movement, with stirring voices such as Cuba's Silvio Rodriguez, Brazil's Chico Buarque, Spain's Joan Manuel Serrat and Chile's Victor Jara.

In those days, being an outspoken artist was a risky profession, especially under dictatorships. Serrat was harassed for singing in his native Catalan instead of in Spanish. Buarque was censored by military rulers. Jara was slain for his socialist-inspired songs during a CIA-supported coup.

Some argue that political repression stunted the evolution of the singer-songwriter in Latin America. In countries like Mexico, political monopolies and media monopolies were notoriously intertwined. Provocative artists found few mass outlets for their work and little label support, say Arjona and others.

The Latin music industry also had financial incentives to play it safe. In an attempt to maximize sales, multinational labels looked for artists who could appeal across the board in a fragmented and nationalistic continent.

For decades, labels actively cultivated romantic singers whose homogenized appeal transcended diverse ethnic cultures. Singers like Spain's Julio Iglesias or Venezuela's Jose Luis Rodriguez or Mexico's Jose Jose became international superstars precisely because they disguised their national origins.

Eventually, they all started sounding the same. Nowadays, those crooners seem almost as old-fashioned as Perry Como and Pat Boone.

More and more, contemporary Latin artists highlight rather than hide their colorful national differences, be it the belly dancing of Shakira or the folksy accordion of Carlos Vives, another Colombian who popularized the coastal country music called vallenato.

By historic standards, though, today's most visible Latin singer-songwriters may sound tame. The most commanding, and uncompromising artists continue to toil in the alt-Latino scene below the radar of commercial radio and sales charts.

The smooth vocal duo Sin Bandera, for example, still sticks mostly to romantic themes. Yet this songwriting team of Argentine Noel Schajris and Mexican Leonel García (whose group name suggests they fly no country's flag) takes a fresh approach to the traditional Latin ballad. Theirs is a revolution of style, replacing melodramatic bel canto with R&B soulfulness and jazzy bossa nova.

"For us," says Schajris, "the social topic that should touch us most is love. Because without love, what good is society?"

Beyond cute faces, to the lyrics Latin pop music, fueled in part by evolving democracy back home and the alt-rock scene, is undergoing a blossoming word-driven revolution.  

  Breakthrough (AP)   The new wave Some recent albums by the new generation of Latin American singer-songwriters Juanes, "Fíjate Bien" (Watch Carefully) -- The Colombian's acclaimed 2001 debut is passionate, bold, original and proud of its roots. Last year's far more conventional follow-up, "Un Día Normal" (A Normal Day), is partly redeemed by the rousing, prayer-like hit "A Dios Le Pido" (I Ask of God). "A Dios Le Pido" "Es Por Ti" "Fijate Bien"

Diego Torres, "Un Mundo Diferente" (A Different World) -- This mellow Argentine uses soft samba and bossa undercurrents to sustain his upbeat vision, especially his anthemic ode to optimism "Color Esperanza" (The Color of Hope). "Color Esperanza" "Alegria" "Soy De La Gente"

Shakira, "MTV Unplugged" -- The sensational Colombian/Lebanese performer writes better in Spanish than English. Here she offers acoustic versions of her pre-blond, pre-crossover hits, such as the biting protest song "Octavo Día" (The Eighth Day). "Octavo Dia" "Ciega, Sordomuda" "Ojos Asi"

Bacilos, "Caraluna" (Moonface) -- The Miami trio's appealing tropical-folk style hit a chord with a young Latino audience as multinational as the band itself. Catchy melodies, clever writing. "Buena" "Mi Primer Millon" "Nada Especial"

Sin Bandera, "Sin Bandera" -- The smooth vocal duo sticks mostly to romantic themes, but this Argentine songwriting team takes a fresh approach to the traditional Latin ballad. "Para Alcanzarte" "Kilometros" "A Encontrarte"

Jorge Moreno, "Moreno" -- This debut earned a best new artist Latin Grammy last year for the talented Cuban American. Moreno seamlessly fuses U.S. and Latin influences in a contemporary, bicultural pop pastiche.