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Music In The Streets

The trucks arrive about 11 a.m. Two small flatbed trucks, piled high with folding chairs. Half a dozen workers materialize from various points of the compass, and begin undoading the chairs and setting them up in the street between the Cathedral plaza and the Zocalo (town square). The street, which surrounds the Zocalo, was closed to auto traffic many years ago.

Carefully arranging the chairs in u-shaped rows, with the open end toward the Zocalo and the back row closest to the Cathedral, the workers fill the open center with seats for the musicians and a rostrum for the conductor. By 11:30, they have finished their work and removed themselves from the scene.

Sometime after noon, the percussion section arrives. Big shiny kettle drums, chimes, and bells, in the back of a pickup truck. The percussionists alight from the front seat to do their own unloading. For the next forty-five minutes, the audience and the other musicians drift in. The musicians carry their own music and stands, and many listeners bring fans, and bottles of agua pura (purified water).

On the sidewalk behind the band, a crew arrives with an amplifier, a microphone and some speakers. The concert is broadcast live on State radio.

In the midst of all this hubbub, Eliseo, the conductor, arrives loaded down with music, music stand, and baton. A fine organist in his own right, he busies himself greeting old friends, having a word with this musician or that, and generally overseeing the action.

Last to arrive, dapper in his black alpaca suit, worn rain or shine regardless of the season, is the announcer. Golden of voice, peerless at pronunciation, and master of the drawn out syllable (la baaaaaaanda del estaaaaaado de Oaaaaaxaaaca), his is the presence without which the show may not go on.

By 1 p.m., everyone is in place, the instruments are tuned, Eliseo is on the podium, and the show begins. When it ends, an hour and a half later, the audience will have been treated to the overtures from Beethoven's "Eggmont", Strauss' "El Murcielago", some Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky; Ponce, Anderson, Yoder. And not a string in the whole ensemble.

Next week it will be light opera, Lawrence Welk and Irving Berlin. The following week, who knows?

We have been watching this pageant for over two years now, and it never fails to please. Seated at a table in one of the portales (sidewalk cafe's) that ring three sides of the zocalo, reading the Sunday paper and doing the Times crossword (I do it in ink, but I cross out and write over a lot), I sip a café americano and bless the winds that blew me home again.

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