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The musicians stand, four abreast, mallets at the ready. With a subtle count-off, the music springs to life as they draw resonant, pinging tones from the bars of the authentic Mexican marimba, a beautifully crafted instrument decorated with inlaid wood.  A delicate buzzing sound accompanies the interweaving melodies played by Marimba Sol de Chiapas.

Commonly called “Sol”, this group is one of only a handful in the United States that practices the traditional style of Mexican marimba. The quartet of musicians all play from the same instrument, which features a five-and-a-half octave chromatic keyboard with stylistic resonators. The resonators are the reason for the distinctive timbre—pig intestine, resembling wax paper, is stretched across a small opening at their base and secured with beeswax, causing a kazoo-like effect each time the bars are struck.

The marimba and tradition are indigenous to Chiapas, the southern-most state in Mexico. The government there supports and encourages the continuation of this style of marimba pura, or pure marimba, sponsoring festivals, competitions, and education in communities. All styles of music are played on the marimba, which serves as a keyboard, chamber, and symphonic instrument.

Just like the community ensembles across Chiapas, Sol is highly active in the Kansas City area, performing in a multitude of venues: parks, festivals, art galleries, restaurants, parties, libraries, schools, concert halls, and museums. They are regular performers with the Kansas City Young Audiences program and recently were accepted as a Missouri Arts Council Touring Group.  They have performed at Art Basel Miami, at the Mexican consulate in New Orleans for last year’s Bicentennial of Mexican Independence celebration, at the St. Louis Hispanic Festival, John Knox Village Festival, and packed the house at each their appearances at Johnson County Community College’s Ruel Joyce Series. They recently had two performances at the Plaza branch of the Kansas City Public Library in honor of Mexican Independence Day.

The group started out as a student ensemble called Marimba Yajalón at Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas in 1988 under the tutelage of Dr. Laurence Kaptain. Kaptain had studied traditional marimba practice in Mexico and met virtuoso Zeferino Nandayapa Ralda while a Fulbright scholar in the early 1980s and wrote the first English language book on the subject. When he was hired at UMKC’s Conservatory of Music in 1991, the group (which included current leader John Currey) moved with him, became a professional ensemble and “Artists-in-Residence” at the Conservatory.

They had the opportunity in 1996 to work with composer James Mobberley, who at the time was in residence with the Kansas City Symphony. He wrote two pieces for the ensemble: Fantasia Parachicos with string orchestra and “Concerto for Marimba (Eight Hands) and Orchestra,” which was performed with the Kansas City Symphony and recorded with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra.

Most of the ensemble’s repertoire, however, comes from more traditional sources, utilizing folk and popular music, always striving for authenticity. Many of the arrangements and transcriptions are by Kaptain and Currey, though their book was expanded considerably by the generosity of Nandayapa who, Currey claimed, would write out arrangements on the plane on his way to visit, handing them out when he arrived.

In 2004 Kaptain accepted a position at another university and was unable to maintain the ensemble. Currey had stepped in to assume the role of leader a few years prior to that, so with Kaptain’s blessing, the group moved out of the Conservatory and, to symbolize a new beginning, changed their name to Marimba Sol de Chiapas, which means the “Chiapan Sun Marimba Group.” The group has been an independent performing ensemble ever since.

Sol serves both a musical and educational role. Since the group’s first version was as a teaching tool, “it has always been our mission and our goal to offer that outreach,” Currey explained. During Kaptain’s tenure at UMKC and for a few years afterwards, Mexican marimba was part of the curriculum for percussion students. For many years they performed at the Fiesta Hispana in downtown Kansas City each September. “It was a way of kick-starting the semester,” remembers Currey. “It was an immersion opportunity to talk about a lot of different things—musically, technically, working as an ensemble—it gave students this initial surge into the school year.” 

The group has numerous presentations, their most popular being Musics of Mexico: A Virtual Musical Tour which includes musical styles from many different regions, arranged for four-person marimba and aimed towards school-aged children. They have also done presentations that incorporate voice and folk dance, such as Passport to Fiesta with Grupo Folklorico Atotonilco.

They continue to evolve. “You know how it is with the arts,” said Currey, “you’re never done learning.” They look forward to developing more collaborative projects, to build on folkloric dance and traditional vocals, as well as work with composers to enrich the repertoire. Their latest CD, Sunrise, is currently in production.

It seems that the time is ripe. “We have a great chemistry in the group…a neat mix of new energy and consistency and experience.” After a few years of frequent personnel changes, “I really feel like we’re whole again and we’re just at the beginning of what we’re going to accomplish,” enthused Currey. The ensemble is Currey, Laura Lee Crandall, Jim Schank, and Sam Wisman. [Full discloser: The author, Libby Hanssen, is married to Sol member, Sam Wisman].

One of their goals is to raise the profile of the group within Kansas City’s Hispanic population. Many immigrants are from the northern region of Mexico and are as unfamiliar with this style as the average Midwesterner. And even though the musicians are not themselves Mexican, they offer solid credentials such as the Nandayapa lineage and bilingual presentation. They have also toured Chiapas and performed in marimba competitions there, been invited by the Mexican government to perform in Mexico City, and have been booked multiple times by Jacob Prado Gonzalez, the Mexican consul in Kansas City.

Saturday, Ocotber 8, the ensemble is performing at two events, both in recognition of Hispanic Heritage month. In the morning they will celebrate with the Girl Scouts at La Centro Academy for Children and in the afternoon at Mattie Rhodes Art Gallery for their Dia de los Muertos Street Festival.

As Marimba Sol de Chiapas celebrates their twenty years calling Kansas City home, they continue to perform and educate the community of this exotic music with the buzzing, humming tone.  

For more information visit www.mexicanmarimba.com .

By Libby Hanssen

Traditional and New Classical, Theatre Contributor

Libby Hanssen holds degrees from University of Missouri-Kansas City (M.M.) and Ball State University (B.M.) in trombone performance and also studied music education at Indiana University. She has studied trombone with Carl Lenthe, JoDee Davis, John Seidel, John Huntoon and Denis Wick, and music education with Brent Gault, Estelle Jorgensen and Katherine Strand.

While at IU, she taught classes in general music, focusing on listening skills and music fundamentals through practical music usage and exploring new sound constructions. During the course of her studies at UMKC, she performed with many ensembles, including the Conservatory Orchestra and Musica Nova. She has also performed with the Kansas City Puccini Festival, the People's Liberation Big Band of Greater Kansas City, the New Jazz Order, the Indiana Wind Symphony and the Muncie Symphony Orchestra.

In 2010, she was a fellow (one of 23 journalists selected from across the US) for the seventh annual National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Arts Journalism Institute in Classical Music and Opera at Columbia University’s Journalism School in New York City.

Most of her free time is spent with her three boys (son, dog and husband) and camera, exploring the many fine aspects of Kansas City living. She enjoys listening to KKFI - Kansas City Community Radio and KCUR - Kansas City's NPR station, visiting Kansas City's fine collection of museums and galleries, and scavenging in thrift and antique stores to add to her collection of toy instruments.

She writes for the joy of words and the process of constructing a story, maintaining the blog Proust Eats a Sandwich (www.prousteatsasandwich.wordpress.com). She is working on her first book: Murray Goes to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

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