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Queridos Amigos - Dear Friends
I remember very well the feeling I had the first day I stepped onto the stage at the Kennedy Center. It was a rehearsal for one of the operas I participated in during my time with the Domingo-Cafritz young artist program. A dream made reality. It was precisely how I dreamed it would be as a child when I used to pretend I was singing in a big theater. A big knot in my throat formed for the next memory that graced my mind. A beautiful recollection of my childhood when with my guitar, I would sing next to my lovely viejita linda, my grandma Bernarda, and the way she used to correct me on the lyrics and style of the song when we used to sing together at our lovely house in my dear Ciudad Juarez. The song of El Reloj (The Clock) is a song I used to sing all the time with my grandma. Every time I sing this song it evokes beautiful memories, and for that reason, my first musical production is titled “L’orologio” (The Clock in Italian. With a never before recorded Italian translation of El Reloj)
This album highlights the Italian version of the song of “El Reloj” by one of the great composer of Tamaulipas, México, Roberto Cantoral. The song was composed in 1956 while he sang with the Trio Los Tres Caballeros.
The inspiration for this Italian translation of El Reloj came to be after a concert in Sora, Italy. During a late bohemian night, I grabbed my guitar and sang the song of El Reloj. In the audience was my dear friend Leandro Allini, a wonderful musician, poet and a true bohemian. He loved the song and interpretation of the song, and I asked him if he would do me the honor of composing a translation in Italian, so the Italian audiences could fully enjoy the magnificence of Roberto Cantoral’s words. The translation was beautiful, so true to the original text in Spanish, and I couldn’t wait to record it.
In this album I offer you a personal tour of my life. In every song there is a significant moment in my life represented. From the deep-rooted songs of my body and soul like La Llorona, to Amapola a song that my uncle Bernardo, a tenor himself, made famous within the family, La Paloma, Divina Ilusion, and Malagueña pleasantly recall for me intimate moments when, with my guitar, I performed my first serenades with my family and the friends of my youth in my dear and lovely Ciudad Juarez.
I hope you’ll enjoy it.
Jesús Daniel Hernández