Piper Cristina Pato Selects

About the Playlist

March 25, 2021

Our final spotlight on the “Leading Ladies” that we are celebrating as part of Women’s History Month is on an artist who made PUC history as the only bagpiper in our 127-year history—the inimitable Cristina Pato. Her recital on our Performances Up Close series in 2017 brought the entire audience to their feet in a spontaneous dance through Richardson Auditorium. Enjoy a little taste of Cristina’s unique musical world by listening to and reading about the playlist that she has curated as part of our Collective Listening Project.

“Saeta/Pan Piper”
from the album Miles Español: New Sketches of Spain
various artists, featuring Cristina Pato and Edmar Castañeda
This was probably my first jazz recording session in NYC. Back in 2010, I was contacted by the late producer Bob Belden to collaborate in an album devoted to the sounds and sources that influenced Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain. Going back to Alan Lomax’s field recordings from the fifties, I learned that the original source for the Pan Piper was recorded not even a mile away from my father’s little village in Galicia. And somehow it inspired me to keep trying to find my voice through my unique instrument in NYC… As I wrote in an article a few years ago:

“Imagining what José María Rodríguez, the pig gelder from Faramontaos, recorded for Alan Lomax in the fifties, or imagining how he ended up inspiring one of the great figures in the world of jazz, helped me realize that, sometimes, it’s us alone who put up our own limits.”  —from my column: http://www.cristinapato.com/en/articles/limits/

Take a look at this video of the recording session in 2010 (click here).

MARISA MONTE “Carinhoso” (“Affectionate”)
from the album Coleção (“Collection”)
featuring singer Paulinho da Viola

MARISA MONTE “Chuva no mar” (“Rain at sea”)
from the album Coleção
featuring singer Carminho

MARISA MONTE “É doce morrer no mar” (“It’s sweet to die at sea”)
from the album Coleção
featuring singer Cesária Évora
Marisa Monte, the great Brazilian MPB [Música popular brasileira] singer is one of my greatest idols. I kind of consider her the soundtrack of my life, mostly because I’ve been listening to her voice since I was a teenager and I followed her musical journey since then. I remember the feeling I had the first time I got to hear one of her albums: back in the 90s (during my pop-rock years), my friend Ana Amado sent me a tape of Marisa Monte’s music (yes, when tapes were a thing), and I fell in love with her voice and with her exhilarating approach to all the Brazilian forms I grew up listening to.

All her albums are a discovery, and she navigated almost every musical language during her professional career. But I’ve chosen this 2016 collection of collaborations, mostly because it includes her version of “Carinhoso” with Paulinho da Viola, “Chuva no mar” with the amazing Portuguese singer Carminho and “É doce morrer no mar” with Cape Verdian singer and icon Cesária Évora.

MERCEDES PEÓN “Elas” (“They”)
from the album SOS
Mercedes Peón is an icon of Galician music. Internationally acclaimed as a singer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and expert of Galician music, her contributions to Galician music have been historical. Not only did she bring a new way of understanding Galician music into the world, but she also became one of the most respected and sought after musicians of her generation, navigating a unique blend between roots and electronic music. Her incredible and unique musical journey and her powerful presence are truly remarkable, and her work is, somehow, in between performance art, electronic music, and social responsibility.