Andrew Pease (b. 1979) got his start as a composer writing rock songs in high school, and he has written and arranged for wind bands and chamber groups ever since. In his day job, he serves as Associate Professor of Music and Director of Instrumental Music at Hartwick College in Oneonta, NY, where he leads the Wind Ensemble and Brass Ensemble. He is also co-conductor of the Catskill Valley Wind Ensemble, a community band also based in Oneonta. His guest conducting work has taken him to several states and the UK, and he has presented nationally and internationally on topics in the wind band field. He studied music and music education at Dartmouth College, Columbia University Teachers College, and Hofstra University. He completed doctoral studies in wind conducting at Arizona State University, studying with Gary Hill. His work there earned him the 2017 American Prize in Collegiate Wind Band Conducting. He started his career in New York City, where he was music director of the Columbia University Wind Ensemble and the community band Columbia Summer Winds (now Manhattan Summer Winds). Throughout his varied career, he has directed players of all ages and ability levels, from elementary beginning band to adult amateurs to professional ensembles. His latest compositions appear at his personal website, www.andypease.com. He also runs two websites dedicated to wind bands. Wind Band Literature (windliterature.org) is a repertoire resource for bands around the world. The Wind Band Symphony Archive (windsymphonies.org) is a dynamic archive of symphonies for wind band.
Me again, writing about my own music again. Still weird! This latest one was QUITE an experience that brought me and my students into a deeply rewarding cross-cultural experience. Let me send you in the direction of my program notes:
Toro Mata (“Bull Kills” in Spanish) is an Afro-Peruvian folk song that speaks to the experience of enslaved people in Peru. It dates back to at least the days of slavery, which ended in Peru in 1854. It was re-popularized in the 1970s thanks to Caitro Soto, a musician who founded Perú Negro, an ensemble dedicated to preserving Afro-Peruvian music. He performed Toro Mata as a landó, a style of music that shifts fluidly between 12/8 and 6/4 rhythmic feels. Caitro Soto had a lot to say about Toro Mata, including this excerpt from an interview:
“The Toro mata comes from what my grandmother and great-grandmother used to tell me. I built and created the song with things that my ancestors recounted. There is also an earlier Toro mata, which is a compilation by Mrs. Rosa Mercedes Ayarza de Morales. In that one, the bull kills the bullfighter, and it is not a landó with a Coda, but rather a lament; she would sing ‘they are already taking him to bury, the bull kills.’
“In my composition, the ‘toro rumbambero’ is the bull that is quite aggressive. I believe the word is African. ‘Hacerle el quite’ means to evade the bull’s charge, but because the bullfighter is black, they undermined his merit and said ‘that his color doesn’t allow him to do it.’ That’s why they said the bull died of ‘old age’ and not because he killed it. ‘Pititi’ was a young man who danced in Perú Negro, and one day, seeing him dance the Toro mata, I mentioned him in the song, and it stuck.
“”Lapondé” was the tavern where they would go after the bullfight. It was like a recreational center, a hut where they sold food, drinks, and had fun. It was in the same estate of El Chilcal, where the bullfighting took place. It was like a large corral; there was no plaza. Black people would enter spontaneously, and sometimes the estate owners would come to watch because it was their cattle. Once there, they found a black man who had come from Acarí, a plantation near Palpa, closer to Nazca. He hadn’t heard about freedom. He snuck out among the cane, eating fruit and whatever he found to feed himself, and ended up in the valley of Cañete. Hungry, he went to Lapondé, and by the marks on his body, they realized he wasn’t from there: ‘This black man is not from here, cara-crá-crá-crá.’ The last part is an insult; it’s a protest adorned with frivolity. They even wanted to kill him because he wasn’t from there.”
I came across this quote thanks to Peruvian trumpeter Gabriel Alegria, who brought his Afro-Peruvian Sextet to Hartwick College in October, 2024. (Thanks are due to my Hartwick colleague Evan Jagels, who secured a grant from the Foreman Institute of the Creative and Performing Arts that allowed Gabriel and crew to come). Gabriel and I were looking for ways for his group and my Hartwick Wind Ensemble to collaborate. He introduced me to Toro Mata, both through his arrangement for the Sextet and with a deeply informative exchange of emails across continents. Armed with Gabriel’s treasure trove of Toro Mata resources, I sought to adapt it for the Wind Ensemble in two ways. First, I broke it down into its main components (included here as Toro Mata) so that we could learn them all as an ensemble and do some arranging of our own. I leaned on both Gabriel’s version and Caitro Soto’s foundational recording when deciding what to include. Second, I got to work writing a symphonic prelude that might capture some of what lies behind the otherwise festive-sounding landó. There is struggle, suffering, and oppression in Caitro Soto’s story. At Gabriel’s urging, I focused particularly on Pititi, the real-life dancer and cajon player (real name Eusebio Sirio Castillo) mentioned in Soto’s interview who became the fictionalized main character of Soto’s version of the song. Hence the title Pititi’s Lament. In the narrative of the piece, we imagine him slowly working up the nerve to confront the realities of his situation, including a potentially hostile crowd at the tavern, an actual bullfight, and a system of crushing oppression. His fate is unknown at the end, but it doesn’t sound particularly promising. I incorporated as many musical elements of Toro Mata as I could, including the melody, riff figure, and landó rhythms. I also composed an original chorale for the middle section which clashed nicely with the melody, setting up the terror of the climax.
The writing and arranging took place throughout the summer of 2024, with the final version landing on the Hartwick Wind Ensemble stands in September. The premiere of both Pititi’s Lament and this arrangement of Toro Mata took place on October 1, 2024, with me conducting the Hartwick Wind Ensemble. The Gabriel Alegria Afro-Peruvian Sextet joined us for Toro Mata in a truly magical, unforgettable collaboration.
Andrew Pease
October 10, 2024
There are also performance notes for the Toro Mata arrangement, but you’ll have to look at the score at my website to see that. In case this doesn’t come through in the program notes, I have to express HUGE thanks to Gabriel Alegria, who was so giving of time, information, and artistry during this whole process. This piece would not be what it is if not for him and his generous collaborative spirit. Here is the premiere performance, with Pititi’s Lament immediately followed by our very special joint arrangement of Toro Mata.
Now let’s get a little more foundational. Here is the Gabriel Alegria Afro-Peruvian Sextet recording of Toro Mata:
Going to the source, here is Caitro Soto:
Finally, an unbelievable find: PITITI HIMSELF demonstrating Toro Mata as part of an interview in 1994!!
Regarding Toro Mata, here is one version of the lyrics, and here is one website dedicated to it. Also, of course, head over to my website if you’d like to give this a try!