The fast-paced, rhythmic zydeco music of the Mississippi Delta has nothing in common with Johann Sebastian Bach’s Baroque-era violin concertos.
Well, pretty much nothing — except for the fact that they’ll both be featured this weekend at Memorial Hall as Carolina Performing Arts presents the next two installments of its 2008-09 season, giving audiences a chance to examine the identity of two vastly different cultural traditions.
On Friday, Buckwheat Zydeco will perform with Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas. The two groups are among the few from their genre that have garnered a mainstream following.
Zydeco is a style of music that developed in the 1800s in the French-speaking Creole areas of Louisiana. Though it might not be on many students’ iPods, Emil Kang, UNC’s executive director for the arts, encouraged students — and others — to take a chance.
“There’s so much more depth to what we think of as sort of roots music,” he said. “This is just another attempt by us to bring another perspective to the forefront. All of the history might be very noble and interesting, but it’s also very fun.”
Known for being upbeat and danceable, zydeco incorporates instruments like the accordion, guitar, bass guitar, drums, fiddle, horns and keyboards.
Buckwheat Zydeco is the stage name for 60-year-old Stanley Dural Jr., who has been recording zydeco music since 1976.
Kang said the two performances are an important way by which to examine parts of American history.
“We all realize that for us to move into the future, we have to remember our past,” Kang said.
“With all the attention paid to the world over the past few years it became more important to know the roots of people in general, but with those people in Louisiana it’s become even more relevant to us.”
CPA’s second event of the weekend also aims to keep less mainstream music relevant in the minds of audiences.
German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter will perform several of Bach’s concertos with chamber orchestra Camerata Salzburg.
Mark Bonds, Boshamer distinguished professor and associate chairman of the music department, said it’s important to note that these concertos, written for violin, were only written because someone made Bach write them.
“The interesting thing is that Bach and other composers always wrote really whatever their jobs demanded. He wrote these in a job he had as a director of a court orchestra in a small court in Germany,” Bonds said.
“The prince that he worked for was a real music lover and put together an orchestra, so Bach wrote most of his orchestral music in a four- to five-year period.”
Bond said that a great deal of Camerata Salzburg’s involvement will be to back up Mutter’s violin.
“The orchestra isn’t just backup, but they’re not an equal partner,” Bonds said. “They provide context for the soloist. … It’s a kind of a dialogue between the two, but the soloist kind of grabs the spotlight.”
The concertos are quintessential late-Baroque music, which is marked by heavy musical ornamentation, and provides a striking contrast to the performance earlier in the week at the same venue.
“I think in both cases, both are at the tops of their fields, but aren’t necessarily mainstream artists,” Kang said.
“They all have, like all the arts do, a real specific cultural heritage that’s being represented, so I think those that have the opportunity to see both are in for a real special treat.”
ATTEND THE SHOWS
Buckwheat Zydeco
Time: 8 p.m. today
Location: Memorial Hall
Anne-Sophie Mutter
Time: 7:30 p.m. Sunday
Location: Memorial Hall
Info: carolinaperformingarts.org
Contact the Arts Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu.
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