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Interview with Stephen Snyder
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PRI's The World, Interview with Stephen Snyder >>
For today's Global Hit, we meet a duo devoted to performing the love songs of Central and South America. The World's Stephen Snyder tells how a chance meeting changed the lives of a Mexican-American singer and a guitarist from Argentina.
The guitarist is Enrique Coria. Born in Argentina and raised on the music of South America, Coria came to the United States in the early nineties. He was soon asked to join a band led by Newgrass mandolin player David Grisman. The Argentine guitarist was flattered by the invitation. As the guitarist for the David Grisman Quintet, Corea gained an American showcase for the skills he'd honed through 25 years, and hundreds of recordings, in Buenos Aires. He was the first Latin musician to play with the quintet.
Coria grew up in a fishing village in central Argentina. When he was twelve years old he picked up his first guitar. It had no strings, so his father strung it with nylon fishing line.
Six thousand miles north Yolanda Aranda was getting musical encouragement from HER father. A Mexican immigrant raising his family in Northern California, Yolanda's dad embraced all things American. But each year he'd take the family on a road trip through Mexico. Yolanda soaked up her Latin heritage, especially the music.
For Yolanda Aranda, singing became a favorite social activity. She'd sing in choirs and choruses, but she never took solos. She decided to take a class for closet singers, and in doing so, discovered she had this voice. With new confidence in her singing Yolanda Aranda became a soloist for Coro Hispano, a Latin American choral group in San Francisco. At a private party one night following a concert, Yolanda was asked to sing one of her favorite ballads a capella. As she began her song, the house went quiet, even though it was packed with partygoers.
Enrique Coria: My friend, he invited me to go there, and I said "Nobody accompany her, nobody know the chords or the tune?" "No, nobody know this, no, no." "Okay, give me your guitar!"
Yolanda Aranda: If I remember now I think I was like in the middle of the dining room, and there was about 75 to 100 people, the Counsel General of Mexico was there, and other people who were involved in music. And I couldn't see the guitarist, there were too many people around for me to be able to see, I could just hear this guitar accompanying me just magnificently.
I was searching for the guitarist, like "Where, where is the guitarist?"
Enrique Coria: And I was well in the back, I can see when Yolanda's singing, but we don't meet in that party until almost at the end of the party.
Yolanda Aranda: I'd gone into the kitchen to get a glass of water and I saw this very elegant man with these polished fingernails, and as I had the realization that this was indeed the guitarist he said "You sing very well." And then that's how our conversation started.
That conversation led to a musical partnership, and now an album on acousticdisc called "Intimo" produced by David Grisman. The intimate sound of the recording, just voice and guitar, brings the songs of Mexico, Peru, Spain and Argentina up close and personal. The record company calls it a musical marriage of voice and guitar. That word marriage is appropriate. Two years after they first met, Enrique Corea and Yolanda Aranda exchanged vows.
For The World, I'm Stephen Snyder 10/20/03 >> go there
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