El Testamento

El Testamento is the inaugural recording for CANTANTE, the recording label of the John Donald Robb Musical Trust Committee. All recordings featuring music from the folk music archives at the John Donald Robb Archive of Southwestern Music at the University of New Mexico will appear on the Cantante label.

More about Alex J. Chávez…

Alex J. Chávez was born on a farm two miles east of the village of Capulin, Colorado, in the San Luis Valley, November 9, 1922. After attending school in La Jara, Colorado, he spent three years in the United States Army; two of which were in Europe with the Seventh Army Headquarters.

Upon his return to the States, Mr. Chávez attended the University of DePaul in Chicago and received a Master's Degree in Music from the University of Colorado in Boulder. He has taught music on the elementary, secondary, and university levels in both the United States and Malaysia. Noted appearances include such places as: Wolf Trap Farm, Virginia; The Smithsonian Folk Festival, Washington, D.C., and the Scottsdale Folk Festival, Arizona. He has been a recipient of the Burl Ives Award for Folk Music.

In recent years, Alex and his wife Virginia have appeared jointly in concerts and in the presentation of workshops for schools; senior centers and homes; arts councils, and for the general community throughout the Southwest, performing Alex's recollected and personally researched folk music. Virginia, an English/speech major, enhances the vocal performance by providing narrative background and translation when appropriate.

"Alex Chávez is not just a singer of songs. He is an interpreter of the Spanish way of life. His songs express the romantic, realistic, and humorous attitudes which the Spanish people inherited fromSpain, Mexico and their traditions in the American Southwest. He brings to Spanish balladry what John Jacob Niles and Burl Ives have brought to the English folk song in other parts of the United States." - T.M. Pearce, Albuquerque