Danzón No. 2
by Arturo Marquez

Composer’s Notes
The idea of writing Danzón 2 came to me while traveling to Malinalco with painter Andrés Fonseca and Irene Martínez, a dancer. They are both experts in social dances, and share a special passion for the danzón, which they communicated to me from the very start, subsequent excursions to the port City of Veracruz and to the Salón Colonia, in a popular borough of Mexico City only deepened this love. From these experiences I started learning the rhythms, the forms, the melodic twist, I also listened to old recordings of the legendary Acerina and his Danzonera. I discovered that the apparent lightness of the danzón hides a music full of sensuality and rigor, music that our old folks live with nostalgia and joy, a world that we can still grasp in the dance music of Veracruz and the dance halls of Mexico City.