WIFI available to members

The Metronome
Unión Musical The Unión Musical San Fulgencio has
arranged a WIFI zone for the use of
San Fulgencio its members. As from now, any
Centro de Música member of the society can arrange
The joke of the month:
a connection to the Internet. You
San Fulgencio only need to send an e-mail to the
office at wifi@umsf.es to ask for the What is invented the piano?
password. We hope that this news
C/ Menéndez y Pelayo, 8 will be of use to members.
03177 – San Fulgencio For that musicians have a place
Alicante to support the beer.
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If you have any proposals for The
Metronome or for the Unión Musical San
Fulgencio, you can send them to
sugerencias@umsf.es. You can also
leave them in the mailbox beside the
entrance to the music school. Thank you
for helping us to improve.

JOIN US!
Little by little we are growing. If you play a wind instrument, percussion, the cello or the
double bass, why not come and play with us? We are waiting for you to come.

THE METRONOME
DIRECTOR: LEANDRO R. VILATÓ MARTÍNEZ
HEAD OF EDITORIAL STAFF: RAÚL MORA ROMERO
EDITORIAL STAFF: ANTERO OJANTO y LEANDRO R. VILATÓ MARTÍNEZ
CORRECTIONS: LEANDRO R. VILATÓ MARTÍNEZ y ROSA Mº MIRA PARRA
TRANSLATION: ANTERO OJANTO
PUBLISHER: UNIÓN MUSICAL SAN FULGENCIO
COPYRIGHT: UNIÓN MUSICAL SAN FULGENCIO AÑO 2009
Página 3 ORIGINAL IDEA: ANTONIO GARCÍA GIL, DAVID VIVES Y RAÚL MORA
El Metrónomo – Número 7 - Época 2 – Diciembre 2009

The Metronome – Number 8 - Edition 2 – January/February 2010

 The Metronome
A Bulletin for Lovers of Music

Number 8
Coming important
events:

• Concierto Homenaje a
Ventura Cartagena

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 • Concierto de Semana

Santa (28 Marzo)

Edition 2
More information
Published by Unión Musical San Fulgencio available from:
www.umsf.es

EDITORIAL
Happy holidays from our family to yours! “Hell is full of
If you are reading this bulletin for the first time, we bid you welcome.
If, on the contrary, you are a regular reader, we say, ”Here we are back music fans”
again”.
George Bernard Shaw
Irish Writer
During the past two months, we have taken part in various activities, the Nobel Literature Prize
most important of which was the concert in honour of the patron saints
of our municipality. This month the Unión Musical San Fulgencio have
planned to put on a concert dedicated to Ventura Cartagena Guirao. This
concert will be held on Saturday, February 28 at 19.00 in the Municipal
Theatre ”Cardenal Belluga”. Entrance is FREE.

As a new item in this number, you will find published inside the first
article of opinion sent in by a reader of this bulletin. We hope that, just
as this one of our readers was encouraged to write, we will be sent other
contributions whether they are opinions or not.

In the next numbers we will count on collaboration with various experts

on musical themes and various journalists. We hope you will enjoy
them.

VISIT THE WEB:

www.elmetronomo.org

The Metronome – Number 8 - Edition 2 – January/February 2010


Sir John Dankworth dies aged 82.
Sir John Dankworth won several awards.
Opinion
The Unión Musical, may it long flourish in San Fulgencio!
Jazz legend Johnny Dankworth dies aged 82
Saxophonist Sir John, 82, served as musical
director to the likes of Nat King Cole and Ella
Fitzgerald.
Sir John, known as Johnny, died in a London
hospital on Saturday. He had been ill for several
months.
His wife, the singer Dame Cleo Laine,
announced his death at a concert at their
Buckinghamshire theatre, where she was
performing with their children.
The concert on Saturday was celebrating 40
years of the theatre, which the couple founded
in the grounds of their home in Wavendon.
Dame Cleo broke the news to the artists before
the concert began but did not tell the 400-
strong audience until the finale.
The theatre's chief executive said the family had
shown "incredible" bravery.
"I think the audience had a great sense of
shock," said Monica Ferguson. "There were a lot
of gasps and people I spoke to afterwards were
visibly shaken and moved by it."
The concert featured performances from Dame
Cleo and the couple's jazz musician children
Alec and Jacqui.
Celebrities such as Paul O'Grady, Prunella
Scales, Maureen Lipman, Timothy West and
Victoria Wood also performed.
Sir John died at the King Edward VII Hospital in
central London.
In a statement, his agent said: "The all-star
concert, featuring numerous British stars of
stage, screen and recordings, became a tribute
to John."
He was hailed by Jazzwise magazine as "one of
the totemic figures of British jazz" and the UK's
"first major jazz musician".
His agent Jim Murtha, speaking from New York,
told the BBC it was "a sad day".
Mr Murtha added: "For British jazz and jazz
around the world, I believe John has become
such an international figure, particularly since
he became Sir John Dankworth a few years
ago."
Sir John and Dame Cleo met in 1950 while he
was auditioning for singers with his band, the
Dankworth Seven.
In 1993 Sir John formed the Dankworth
Generation Band, with his son Alec.
After winning a place at the Royal Academy of
Music aged 17, and following a short spell in the
Army, the young Sir John was voted British
Musician of the Year in 1949.
The same year he attended the Paris Jazz
Festival, where he played with the legendary
Charlie Parker.
In the 1960s, Sir John scored such films as
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, The
Servant and Modesty Blaise and wrote the
theme tunes for The Avengers and Tomorrow's
World.
Sir John and Dame Cleo founded their charity,
the Wavendon Allmusic Plan, in 1969, which
led to the establishment of the Stables.
He was appointed CBE in 1974 and founded the
London Symphony Orchestra Summer Pops in
1985.
Sir John was a fellow of the Royal Academy of
Music and received the Freedom of the City of
London in 1994.
He was knighted in 2006 for services to music.
In October last year he fell ill at the end of a US
tour with his wife.
The couple cancelled a number of UK concert
dates for the following month, although Sir John
did return to the concert stage at the London
Jazz Festival, playing his saxophone from his
wheelchair at the Royal Festival Hall.

As we know, music is one of the great pillars of popular culture; what town in the world is without music? Without leaving San
Fulgencio we can go back in time to the 19th century, when people from San Fulgencio formed part of the band in Rojales. Let us not
forget the Auroros, who long ago, made the Spanish mandoline ring, much later playing clarinets and saxophones, which today, thanks
to people who are linked to the Unión Musical in one way or another, we are able to hear at the crack of dawn on Sundays in October
during the Madrugadas celebrations.
Who has experienced a fiesta in honour of our patron saints without music? Or a Feast of the Innocents without dancing? Unfortunately
concerning the splendid Innocents, the great majority of our present inhabitants only know about them from the recollections of
elderly persons. What do we really know about our local fiestas, since nobody seems to now know how they once were? Has not
somebody asked anything? Why have they changed or ceased? I am sure that others have asked these questions but where are the
answers? What has happened to those traditions which once attracted people to our area from neighbouring areas, but which no longer
attract and no longer are followed by the people who now live here? How is this possible? To all these questions the response should
come from the municipality, but in what manner? Is it impossible, really?
The Unión Musical San Fulgencio began its journey, thanks to the determination and vision of people who were convinced not only
about the need, but who were also able to give to San Fulgencio new possibilities of satisfaction and to truthfully guide it in the right
direction. After nearly twenty five years, the Unión Musical continues its journey, moving from the old nursery to the new music school,
gaining prizes and prestige, but now able to do things even better (its capacity is ideal and the seed has been sown): to be a channel
Página 2 give answers to our questions.
which can

Thank you and continue the good work!

Javier Lermas Baeza

The Metronome – Number 8 - Edition 2 – January/February 2010

 VENTURA CARTAGENA GUIRAO: A GENUINE CREATOR OF WIND BANDS

Ventura Cartagena was born in Rojales on April 28, 1924

into a family with many bonds to the wind band of his
town. He was interested in music from an early age; at
his own initiative he began to receive solfeggio (sight-
reading) lessons at the age of eight. At the age of fifteen,
he began studying solfeggio and clarinet in earnest with
the conductor of the Rojales band, his uncle Miguel
Cartagena Clavo. Some years later he studied harmony
by correspondence with José Amorós Mayor, a professor
in Barcelona.

He became a member of the general society of

composers. He dedicated the major part of his life to
music becoming an instrumentalist, conductor and
composer. There have been renditions of several of his
works during televised competitions. It has been
calculated that during his professional life more than
four hundred musicians have followed in his footsteps in
addition to his founding of various musical groups.

Beginning in 1954 he was for many years the conductor

of the ”La Lira” band in Rojales. In 1970 while
conducting this same band, he was awarded the first
prize for the interpretation of his own pasodoble
”Surgir” in a competition organized by the brotherhood
of the Easter societies in the city of Cartagena.

When he ceased to be the conductor of the ”La Lira”

band in 1983, he took up the proposal of his good friend
and musician Rafael Belmonte Andreu to form a band in
San Fulgencio. Beginning his labours from scratch, in a
period of three years, after ardous tasks, the mission
was accomplished. On the first of May 1986 the new D. Ventura Cartagena Guirao
band Unión Musical San Fulgencio ventured out in to the
streets. He continued as the conductor until 1995 when
he gave the baton to his good pupil and musician
Antonio García Gil. He had also founded the choir
”Virgen del Remedio” in the 1990's.

Thirteen years later, on the first of May 1999, a concert

was celebrated in his honour by the band and the choir
in gratitude for his work and he was named conductor
honoris causa.

He has composed in the various genres of music, from

Christmas carols to symphonic poems, particularly
pasodobles such as ”Fiel” and ”Con el alma”, as well as
processional marches, hymns and funeral marches.

To recognize all this work as a musician and director,

and creator of wind bands, San Fulgencio Musical Union
will offer a tribute concert on 28 February at 19:00 at
the Municipal Theater "Cardinal Belluga San
Fulgencio. Admission is free while tickets.

More information: www.umsf.es

The Metronome – Number 8 - Edition 2 – January/February 2010