Avoid Cinco fatigue

Not to sound elitist, but Cinco de Mayo can be a drag. The crowds, the heat, the cheap beer, bad sound and annoying DJs are enough to make you dread those massive outdoor festivals staged every year to celebrate the Mexican holiday.

To avoid the Cinco syndrome, here are a few offbeat alternatives offering more refined aspects of Mexican culture in more intimate settings. What better way to celebrate the defeat of the French than with good food, fine wine and sophisticated music, all with a Mexican twist?

Mexico is known more for its mariachis than its string quartets, but La Catrina comes to town next week to help change some assumptions about classical music.

“People come to us and say, ‘Wow, I didn’t realize there was all this interesting quartet music written by all these Mexican composers,’ ” says violinist Daniel Vega-Albela, who co-founded the ensemble in Mexico City in 2001. “Our main mission is to say, ‘Look, there is this other repertoire for string quartet that is just as varied and just as interesting as the traditional one we tend to associate with string quartet music.”

La Catrina is scheduled to perform next Saturday at Tamayo Restaurant in East Los Angeles as part of the Chamber Music in Historic Sites series sponsored by the Da Camera Society of Mount St. Mary’s College. The events are designed to take classical music out of the concert halls, promoting a multitiered appreciation of music, art and architecture in historic venues.

This is not the first time the series has chosen Tamayo as a showcase. The pioneering Cuarteto Latinoamericano appeared there two years ago in a program that spotlighted East L.A.’s historic Jewish sites. This time, concert-goers are offered a self-guided tour of Chicano murals.

The art theme is in keeping with the restaurant, named after Mexican painter Rufino Tamayo, whose works are on display on the tall walls of the hacienda-style building that once housed the real estate offices of an old California land-grant family. In various incarnations it has been a DMV office, a sheriff’s substation, a furniture store, even a coffeehouse run by the radical Brown Berets in the 1960s. “It’s a wonderful environment,” says Da Camera’s director, Kelly Garrison. “The room itself is a resonant space with a wonderful ambience.”

La Catrina’s musical program is tailored to the life of Tamayo (1899-1991), a painter and muralist with Zapotecan Indian roots who lived and worked for long periods in New York and Paris. The program includes works by Debussy, in honor of Tamayo’s French sojourn, as well as by Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas, a contemporary who shared the artist’s love of Mexican folk art. Two popular songs are also included, Ruben Fuentes’ mariachi standard “La Bikina” and Guadalupe Trigo’s “Mi Ciudad,” a stirring tribute to Mexico City.

The members of La Catrina are now in residency with the Western Piedmont Symphony Orchestra in Hickory, N.C. They are younger than the average string quartet in the U.S., but so are audiences for classical music in Mexico, says Vega-Albela. Garrison compares them to Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel for their youthful energy and mature artistry.

“They are fiery and artistic performers,” he says. “It’s funny; almost the same words I would use to describe [Tamayo’s] artwork can be used to describe their playing.”

La Catrina Quartet performs at Tamayo Restaurant, 5300 E. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, 3 p.m., April 26. Tickets $43. Prix-fixe dinner following the show, $38. (213) 477-2929 or www.dacamera.org.

--

Intimate folk rock with Laud

Three years ago, Jackie and Rudy Cordova were a young Santa Ana couple who wanted a business of their own. She was an accountant and he drove a delivery truck for Home Depot. Maybe they should open a laundromat, they thought, anything to get in on that American dream.

They now run a business in a strip mall near a Target store on busy Bristol Street, but it’s not for washing and drying. It’s called Calacas, and it specializes in Mexican arts and crafts, T-shirts and the occasional live performance. Its slogan: Culture, clothing, curios.

Next Saturday, they are presenting an unusual act from Cuernavaca, Mexico, named Laúd, who bills his music as trova-rock, or roughly Mexican folk-rock, a spinoff of Latin America’s trova, or singer-songwriter tradition, which usually features a poetic vocalist and a consummate guitar. Laud, who also plays harmonica, adds rock elements with a rhythm section and a little bite.

Laud sports a goatee and hair tied back in a ponytail, and he writes songs about love and such social concerns as ecology and immigration. His show is sponsored by Cafe-Te-Arte and El Sapo Cancionero (The Songbook Frog), a network that has promoted trova in Southern California since 2000, presenting such top names as Fernando Delgadillo and Viola Trigo. On concert nights, the merchandise is moved aside and chairs are set out for 50 to 75 people. It’s an ideal, intimate way to enjoy this kind of music, meant to move listeners with personal, heartfelt messages.

Calacas is now doing well enough to provide a livelihood for the Cordovas, who met as teenagers when they worked together at Costco, were married in 1995 and now have three sons. Rudy is Mexican American and Jackie describes herself as a “straight-up white girl” from Illinois but a “Mexicana en mi corazon.”

“It’s growing,” she says of the business. “There are days when we just squeak by, but we find a way. Prayers work too.”

Laud live at Calacas, 3374 S. Bristol St., Santa Ana, 8 p.m. April 26. $10. Contact El Sapo Cancionero at (714) 675-1930 or call Calacas at (714) 662-2002. Or go to www.calacasinc.com and www.myspace.com/sapo cancionero.

--

Wine, tamales from L.A.

You’ve heard of wine and cheese, but how about wine and tamales? That’s what’s on the menu for a fundraising event at Mama’s Hot Tamales, a nonprofit restaurant across from MacArthur Park that also serves as a school for people who want to work in the food industry.

The host for the evening: Herbert Siguenza of the satirical trio Culture Clash.

“You know me,” says the writer and actor who fancies himself a budding wine connoisseur. “I’ll crack a joke here and there, but I’m not going to put on my war paint and perform Cantinflas. I’m just going to be myself and have fun with people.”

Our local San Antonio Winery will provide the vino, and Mama’s will provide the tamales in 10 varieties, including guava and cheese. This is the second in a series of wine-toasting, tamale-tasting fundraisers that continues May 10 with host Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers. It’s part of Rediscover MacArthur Park, a neighborhood revitalization campaign that, in the words of “Mama” Sandi Romero, is “getting people to come here at night and not be afraid, because it’s safe.”

“MacArthur Park has been neglected as a neighborhood for a long time,” says Siguenza, who shares Salvadoran roots with many of the area residents. “It’s time that the city start developing it and making it more livable and more cultural for the people here.”

Wine and tamales with Herbert Siguenza, today 6 to 9 p.m. at Mama’s Hot Tamales, 2122 W. 7th St., Los Angeles. $20 per person, $30 per couple. (213) 487-7474 or www.mamashot tamales.com.

--

agustin.gurza@latimes.com