Hear today's full episode by clicking "Listen" above or find "Intermezzo" from your favorite podcast app.
Welcome to Intermezzo from Interlochen Public Radio, where we take a few minutes to bounce some ideas around about classical music.
And I'm Christy L'Esperance and cohosting with me this week is Peter Parra, a Lang Lang Young Scholar pianist who also happens to be a top ten national ranking competitive junior ballroom dancer.
This week, we'll learn about Latin Dances in particular. Let's start with the Cha-Cha.
That upbeat "cha-cha-chá" shuffle step made the cha cha an instant hit in Havana's dance halls and clubs. In the early 1950s, Pierre Lavelle, an English dance teacher, introduced the dance to Europe, and in 1954, the cha-cha arrived in the United States and became a dance craze.
José Antonio Méndez Padrón - Cuban Dances for Solo Horn, Strings and Percussion: No. 5, Sarahchá
And not much later, Leonard Bernstein used the cha-cha rhythms in his musical West Side Story. But in this case, since it accompanies the enchanting scene where Tony and Maria see each other at a school dance, and it's love at first sight their cha-cha is a slow, tender dance.
Bernstein - Cha Cha from "West Side Story"
This week's Mystery Melody
It's time to test your ears. Each week we have a mystery melody that we have to figure out together. It relates to our topic. (We'll make the melody less mysterious each day.)
If you know the mystery melody, text your name and the title and we’ll give you a shout out on Friday. The number to text is (833) 490-4718.
