Cantando En La Ciudad De Los Angeles

In seventeenth-century Puebla de los Ángeles, Christmas was sung in many tongues. Gaspar Fernández, a Guatemalan musician who became chapel master of Puebla Cathedral, filled his Cancionero, a manuscript of nearly 270 villancicos, with the voices of the city’s Indigenous, African, Iberian and mixed communities. This album brings together fifteen of them, with settings in the dialects of Guinea and Angola, in Nahuatl-inflected “indio”, in Basque and in Portuguese. Three are musicological recoveries and world premiere recordings. The programme also includes a Christmas ensalada, an invitatorio and instrumental pieces by Gil de Ávila and Francisco Guerrero.

La Boz Galana, directed by Sebastián León, joins forces with the instrumental ensemble Concerto Scirocco under Giulia Genini. Cornetts, sackbuts, dulcians, harp, guitars and organ reinforce the voices as they would have in the cathedral. The result is a lively, warm and varied Christmas programme. Recorded in August 2025 in Riehen, Switzerland, it reimagines a rich cultural meeting place as living music.

La Boz Galana (vocal ensemble)
Sebastián León, direction & baritone
Concerto Scirocco (instrumental ensemble)
Giulia Genini, direction, tenor & bass dulcians, alto recorder