Edgardo Espinosa CODIFICACIONES

Onix Ensamble is a recognized and award-winning ensemble of young Mexicans dedicated to spreading the best of the newest trends in contemporary music. All of its members, with the experience and international trajectory of a virtuoso soloist, work together as part of a sound collective that has been acclaimed by the specialized critic as unique in Latin America, exceptional… hypnotic… great expressive and musical intensity.. 

Edgardo Espinosa was born in Mexico City in 1963. He studied music at the National Music School of the UNAM with Victor Manuel Cortés, graduating with honors in 1991. As a recipient of scholarships from UNAM and FONCA, he pursued postgraduate studies in London at the London College of Music, with the teacher Richard Markson, and later in Thames Valley University, where he concluded his master’s degree in the year of 1995.

He has taken training courses with Ivan Monighetti, Alan Smith, Wolfgang Laufer, Maud Martin Tortelier and Joan Dickson, among others. He was the winner of the First and second places in the Open Competition for Soloists of the ENM Symphony Orchestra, third place in the First National Cello Competition and the 1992 London College of Music's annual string competition.

The courses and festivals in which he has participated include: the International Festival of Edinburgh, the Course of the Campus Internazionale di Musica of Sermoneta, Italy, the International Festival Cervantino, the Festival of Mexico City and the International Forum of New Music “Manuel Enríquez”.

Catalina Pereda / Tempus Fugit / Christian Gohmer MARCELA RODRÍGUEZ Las Cartas de Frida

 Marcela Rodríguez’s latest opera ‘Las cartas de Frida’ [Frida's letters], sets out to dispel the ‘folkloric’ myth of Frida Kahlo by showing the artist through her letters. 

According to Rodríguez, the greatest threat to Frida’s legacy is Frida herself. ‘We have stopped looking at Kahlo’s art for looking at Kahlo herself’, she told, referring to Julie Taylor’s movie and Robert X Rodriguez’s opera-musical among other recent works. ‘And yet we can’t even see her. All we see is the relationship with Diego, the rave-ups, the myths I’m personally completely uninterested in’. 

Rodríguez, a native of Kahlo’s own neighbourhood of Coyoacán, based the opera on the artist’s diaries and letters found in her childhood home of Casa Azul (now a museum).

 “I was enthralled by her honesty”, she said. “Her style is beautiful, deeply humorous and scathingly critical of society. She doesn’t shrink from vulgarity either. But this is how we speak here”. 

The opera premiered in Berlin in 2011 and was briefly shown at UNAM in May-June, to enthusiastic reviews.