Manhattan College Meets Argentina
Laurel Noble
Issue date: 2/25/09 Section: Features
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Santillan, along with singer and friend Sofia Tosello, performed last Monday for a small group in the Alumni room hosted by the Modern Foreign Language Department,.
Santillan was contacted by a friend in the Secretary of Culture a couple years ago after he saw him performing a concert on TV in Argentina. "It was an honor to be commissioned. Imagine it. Borges is the most important Spanish writer," said Santillan.
Borges, born at the turn of the 20th century in Buenos Aires, started writing poems and essays in 1921 for literary journals such as The Surrealist. He went on to be the director of the National Library of Argentina until his resignation in 1973 after the re-election of Peron. He then toured as a public speaker reading his works.
The works of Borges focused on existentialism and followed the style of surrealism.
Santillan brought to life such works of Borges as "La Luna," "Un Instante," and "Las Causas."
Although Santillan has been performing for most of his life, the process of writing was very difficult. "Borges is sometimes very dark and he uses difficult words that make it harder to write music to those types of poems," said Santillan.
About 30 students and staff attended to enjoy all the Spanish music and food. "I really liked the performance. I think they did a great job of representing the meaning of the poems through the music," said Junior Erin Lynn.
The entire process took Santillan two years to accomplish. "I worked for one year writing and another year I worked with Sofia rehearsing," said Santillan.
Santillan and Tosello met years ago in Argentina at a concert where Santillan was performing. "He doesn't remember," said Tosello, "But I was 15 and he played in my city."
They later met up in New York City where Tosello now performs in three or more Spanish language groups, in addition to studying jazz at City College and teaching Spanish music to children in public schools around the city.
Santillan and Tosello look forward to recording a full length CD of these works for enjoyment of the public sometime later this year. This will be the sixth CD of Santillan's original work.