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Pequeñas Piezas Para Mi Padre (title collection to Cruz’s 2004 CD) 1. Florinda 2. Magdalena 3. Triste 4. Plomotor 5. Jardin de Cacto 6. Socorro 7.Danza para Amparo 8. Herminia 9. Alvarado 10. Dos Cantantes 11. Nona 12. Matehuala Note from the composer: PEQUEÑAS PIEZAS PARA MI PADRE Born and raised in Mexico, my father Manuel had an innate sense of music that would be his passion for seventy-five years. I remember in my youth, watching him play his Pimentel and being fascinated by his ability to include bass, rhythm and melody together on one guitar. Even though he was a great mariachi musician, it is unusual for one to play such as he did without formal instruction. I was fortunate to have such a great influence. As a teenager I composed quite a bit. I frequently played new pieces for my father and thrived on his encouraging praise. He heard me play original work so often that it became his instinct to ask, “Did you write that?”. College would prove to slow down my production as practice, course work, and gigs kept me from composing little if any. Furthermore, at the time I never considered composition as something I would seriously pursue. Between the years 1983 and 1986, part of my requirement as a guitar major was that I perform a junior and senior recital. Included in these programs were the Bach Chaconne, Walton’s Five Bagatelles, Britton’s Nocturnal Op. 70, and many other works of the same difficulty.At that time, this was the music that my father was hearing me play.Unknowingly, he asked me the same question as before, “Did you write that?” Many times I told him “no”. This is when I decided that one day I would write a collection of pieces for him under the name “Little Pieces for My Father”. Finally in 1991, straight out of graduate school, jobless, and living with my brother Edgar, I wrote six pieces of this collection within the course of a few days between the months of June and July. Due to my interests in many other styles of music, the remaining six would be written between great intervals of time. Each piece in “Pequenas Piezas” is attributed to something from my father’s life. Florinda, Magdalena, and Nona, are for his sisters. Plomotor was a stray cat he adopted.According to my father, this name is a combination of two Spanish words, plomo meaning lead for his color, and motor because he frequently purred. Dos Cantantes,literally, two singers, is named after my father and his best friend and musical companion, Alberto Aguilar. Alvarado, named after my father’s uncle Luis Alvarado who was the first of his family to come to the United States and who would be the one to bring my father on September 10th, 1944. Herminia, his mother. Danza para Amparo, means Dance for Amparo a.k.a. Joann Cruz, the mother of his six children and long time inspiration. Jardin de Cacto is The Cactus Garden. He loved his native country and surrounded himself with topographic reminders. Socorro, his soul mate and kindred spirit. Matehuala, his home town in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Finally, Triste is posthumously titled.
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