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Stay up-to-date with the latest trends and events from around the hemisphere with AQ's Panorama. Each issue, AQ packs its bags and offers readers travel tips on a new Americas destination.
Every January, over 20,000 music enthusiasts descend upon the picturesque coastal city of Cartagena, Colombia, for the annual Cartagena International Music Festival (CIMF). Over the course of eight days, renowned musicians from across the globe fill the city’s plazas, churches and theaters with classical music.
It’s not just the Caribbean locale and classical music that make this festival special.
The CIMF, founded three years ago by Italian-American harpist Victor Salvi and his wife, Julia, a Colombia native and arts devotee, is dedicated to introducing Colombians, especially young people, to the masterpieces of classical composers.
“The [visiting] musicians are a model for our young people, showing them how far they can go,” says Sandra Meluk, executive director of Fundación Salvi Colombia, the festival’s founding organization.
The CIMF’s motto—“Music Is For Everyone”—underscores festival week. Residents of the city’s low-income neighborhoods can attend free concerts, and there are also master classes for nearly 400 young artists. But the festival also serves as a catalyst for music education and performance through the year. Forty students received music scholarships from the foundation in 2009, and approximately 100 classes are offered to the public year-round. Bogotá’s Monserrate Quartet, featured in the 2009 festival’s “Young Talent Program,” performed at Stanford University last June.
Listen to Selections from Artists Performing at the 2010 Festival
Hsin-Yun Huang: “Mozart Symphonia Concertante”
Stephen Prutsman: “Bach Pista”
Puerto Candelaria: “Vuelta Canela”
1. Support indigenous culture. Paraguay is home to about 500 indigenous communities or villages, including five different linguistic groups. To learn about their cultures, visit Museo Boggiani in San Lorenzo, about 18 miles (30 kilometers) from Asunción, where the director, Jorge Vera, is likely to guide your tour.
2. Bask in the glow of the Palacio de los López. The stunning all-white nineteenth-century presidential palace is best viewed after dark—when it is aglow with bright lights—from across the street at the patio bar of the Manzana de la Rivera cultural center.
3. Eat at the Lido. Easily Paraguay’s most famous eatery, the Lido Bar, located in the heart of downtown Asunción, boasts a small army of uniformed waitresses who shout out orders of the traditional Paraguayan fare served here since 1953.
4. Explore Paraguay’s (old) politics. The tragic and often-violent history of the country’s 35-year dictatorship is on display at the Museo de la Memoria (1066 Calle Chile), established in 2006 as part of an effort to bring to light human-rights violations.
5. Beat the heat. Find a shady spot at the city’s central Plaza de los Heroes. Look for a woman selling tereré, a cold tea made with fresh herbs and sipped through a metal straw.
6. Catch a show. Tickets at Asunción’s Municipal Theater, which first opened in 1889, usually sell for less than $10 a show. Any performance featuring a harp is a must-see: the instrument is Paraguay’s musical forte.
7. Try the local brew. Never mind the brand; asuncenos seek out whatever beer is coldest and many find their way to Brittania Pub. For a more exclusive experience go to Planta Alta, an art gallery and bar in a restored downtown space.
8. Stroll an open-air market. Asunción’s largest and most chaotic outdoor market features vegetable stalls, a large butcher, scores of pirated DVDs, electronics, and other household goods. Enter at the intersection of Avenida Petirrosi and Calle República Francesa.
9. Become a fan. Watch the traditional rivalry between Asunción’s two largest professional soccer teams—Club Olimpia and Club Cerro Porteño—play out at one of their regular games at the city’s Defensores del Chaco stadium or at one of the clubs’ private fields.
10. Cool off by the lake. Lake Ypacaraí, near the hillside town of Aregua, is a 13-mile (20-kilometer) trek from Asunción and a favorite place for in-the-know asuncenos to relax from the city heat.
Latin America has yet to bring home a Winter Olympic Games medal. Could the February 12–28, 2010, games in Vancouver, Canada, be a historic turning point?
Although teams have yet to be officially announced, a good indicator of the region’s chances is the number of athletes who competed in the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, Italy. Some 30 athletes from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, and Venezuela qualified for the Turin games. Brazil and Argentina are fielding the most hopefuls in 2010, with 16 Brazilians and 17 Argentines vying for a slot in Vancouver. AQ looks at four of the region’s athletes who have already qualified—or are close to qualifying.
Cristian Simari Birkner (Argentina)
The 29-year-old from San Carlos de Bariloche is one of only three Argentine athletes to have secured an Olympic berth as of press time. Competing in his third Olympics, Birkner placed 23rd in the Men’s Combined event in Turin. His sisters are in the running as well. María Belén, 27, and Macarena, 26, have yet to qualify, but hope to ski in Vancouver.
Cynthia Jennifer Denzler (Colombia)
One of Colombia’s best prospects to qualify for the games, Giant Slalom skier Denzler, 25, secured first place at the Wales Championship last February, edging out her Swiss competitor, Laura Zurbriggen.
Isabel Clark (Brazil)
Rio de Janeiro native Clark first came in contact with both snow and snowboarding in 1994, when she was 17. She placed ninth in snowboarding at the 2006 Turin games—the best finish for a Brazilian athlete in Winter Olympics history.
Now 33, she is ranked 12th in the world as she prepares to head to Vancouver. Clark finished the 2008–2009 season 13th in the Snowboard Cross World Cup ranking.
Kevin Alves (Brazil)
Born in Toronto, Canada, to a Brazilian mother and Portuguese father, 17-year-old Alves began competing for Brazil in 2007. At the 2008 Four Continents Championships, he became the first male skater to represent Brazil. Alves went on to place 37th at the 2009 World Figure Skating Championships—earning him the distinction of becoming the first male figure skater to compete for Brazil at the senior world level.
Summertime in Santiago, Chile, means all the world’s a stage—or at least all the city. For three weeks every January, Chile’s capital hosts Santiago a Mil, a mix of mainstream, experimental and street theater performed in various locations. The city-sponsored festival was launched in 1994 with five plays performed by local companies. It now includes some 50-odd theatrical performances and concerts, including 20 international groups. Many artists offer theater classes and workshops in the community.
Festival prices have also grown over the past 15 years. In the early days, tickets to performances cost 1,000 (mil) Chilean pesos ($1.60). Today, the high-profile shows go for around $14 a pop. But discounts are available for students and seniors, and Mil features a number of free performances. Last January a 23-foot-tall copper puppet from Catalunya, Spain, roamed the streets chased by her “lover,” a winged angel.
Plan ahead for 2010 when Santiago a Mil will kick off Chile’s bicentennial with increased emphasis on Chilean plays and playwrights.
The growth of emerging economies like China and India offers real opportunities for some of the hemisphere’s exporters. A May 2009 book published by the Center for the Implementation of Public Policies Promoting Equity and Growth (CIPPEC) focuses on what Argentina must do if it wants to reach the new global middle class. Market Hunters: Trade and Export Promotion in the Argentine Provinces, written by Lucio Castro and Daniel Saslavsky, argues that the concentration of Argentine exporters hampers expansion and recommends improvements in infrastructure, business environment and inter-governmental coordination. Available in English and Spanish.
The Vanderbilt University Latin American Public Opinion Project’s (LAPOP) Insights series looks at statistical evidence drawn from the AmericasBarometer survey from 2004 and 2008 that demonstrated Honduras’ unusual vulnerability to political instability in the years prior to the June 28 coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya. Authored by Mitchell Seligson and John Booth in August, Predicting Coups? Democratic Vulnerabilities, The AmericasBarometer and The 2009 Honduran Crisis reveals how pre-coup Honduras was 19 times more vulnerable to instability than the most stable country in the survey, Costa Rica. Available in English and Spanish.
Parlamento y defensa en América Latina, el papel de las comisiones: (Parliament and Defense in Latin America: The Role of Commissions) Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Perú, Venezuela, a June 2009 Security and Defense Network of Latin America (RESDAL) publication analyzes how legislatures in each of the Andean countries develop security and defense policies. Available in Spanish.
Step aside, sunbathers. From December 3 to 6, 2009, Art Basel Miami Beach, the most prominent art fair in the U.S., will again transform the city into the country’s temporary art capital.
The show, founded in 2002 as the winter version of Switzerland’s famed Art Basel, is expected to attract the work of artists from 33 countries and an estimated 40,000 international visitors. At least 250 art galleries participate in the event, which has “put Miami on the map of the contemporary art world,” according to Frederic Snitzer, a member of the art fair’s selection committee.
Art Basel Miami Beach is also an important meeting point for the contemporary art world in the Americas. About 20 galleries from Latin America will participate, including Galería Casas Riegner in Bogotá. Casas Riegner—a branch of Miami’s famed Casas Riegner—is showing “modern, transformative works” (see picture) from a new generation of artists such as Mateo López, a 31-year-old Colombia native who is returning to the show for his third consecutive year.
Art connoisseurs can also enjoy a number of unaffiliated art fairs on the fringes of the event featuring new artists and galleries that have contributed to South Florida’s cultural transformation. Admissions costs were not available at press time, but are expected to remain unchanged from last year’s $35 per day.
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AQ's coverage and post-trip analysis of the President's May 2-4 visit.
