Dear Friends,

I am thrilled to announce that today is the world release of our first recording with Sony Classical! Mi Alma Mexicana, our two-CD set featuring masterpieces of grand Mexican composers over the last 200 years.



It makes me very happy to share this release with you, as I believe it represents what Mexican culture is; not only the well-known picture of folklore, cuisine, colors and breathtaking landscapes that amaze visitors, but the modern Mexico, eclectic and baroque in every sense of the word: a rich spectrum of possibilities and exquisite taste.

Buy CD now! I hope you enjoy.

Special thanks to Sony Music and our sponsors for believing in this dream.




Gustavo Santaolalla, Bajofondo and POA
MAY 14, 2010

We had so much fun at our performance at the Walt Disney Hall in L.A. with renowned composer and good friend Gustavo Santaolalla and his band, Bajofondo!




Recording of POA´s first CD with Sony Classical! Celebrating the Bicentennial of Mexico´s Independence.

JANUARY 2010

We just finished recording our very first CD for Sony! An amazing experience, it was ten days of hard but rewarding work, everyone in the group put their best efforts into making this unique album.

POA musicians of more than 20 different nationalities enthusiastically inmersed themselves into Mexican music. I could´t be prouder of how they performed these masterworks from my beautiful home country, 13 different Mexican composers from 1810 to 2010!

In August 2010, Sony will release internationally our debut two-CD set featuring masterpieces of grand Mexican composers over the last 200 years.

Our fantastic producer:
Adam Abeshouse

Our amazing soloists:
Daniel Andai, violin
Pablo Sáinz-Villegas, guitar
Alex Brown, piano

Bienvenidos! I am so excited to introduce you to my brand new website. Here, you will find all the details about my future performances, so that hopefully you can join me at one or many of them throughout the year. You will also be able to read my news section where I will share stories about my latest adventures, concerts and projects. Also, you don´t want to miss the gallery and video sections for footage from my latest concerts.

I hope to see you soon!

-Alondra

OAXACA: I can´t believe our second tour is over! I´m as exhausted as could be, but really happy with the results. I think the most satisfy thing is seeing how this orchestra has grown together. Our performances are starting to change from being a lot of fun, to being an extremely unique, energetic experience. Now, it´s almost as if I can hear everyone´s thoughts when we move from each phrase to the next, as if they can anticipate my ideas, and simultaneously put in their suggestions, all in real time, all at once, in a seamless conversation.

Dvorak 9 went really well last night. It is such a difficult piece, and it takes many times going through it to start controlling its architecture. It´s like every theme has a different tempo, and the littlest change in the tempo can either make it or ruin it. It is a much harder piece than I thought, and I´m very glad I got to learn it and look forward to the next time I conduct it.

The whole tour started in Houston with the Grammy´s, and then traveled to Mexico, where we played in one of my favorite halls, Sala Nezahualcóyotl. If only we could rehearse and perform in a hall like that every day, it would make the biggest difference! It´s like you can hear everybody´s breath!

Then we worked with the Children´s Orchestra of Cuidad Nezahualcóyotl, which was also a very special part of the tour for me. It is very gratifying to be able to teach children and get them excited about orchestral music, playing in an orchestra, being a team player, and how being there for each other is one of the greatest gifts one can learn in life.

We later went to Guadalajara and then finally ended our tour in Oaxaca, which is one of the most beautiful towns in the planet. I wish we could come and play here for a whole month. It was especially nice to see Mr. and Mrs. Alfredo Harp, who were so nice as to sponsor us to go to Oaxaca. They are the most generous and philanthropic people.

Even though I´m very tired and can´t wait to go home and rest, I feel very pleased with our team for accomplishing a second tour only four years after this orchestra was founded.

When we were at the Latin Grammys, I got to meet La Banda Recodo through my brother, Mane, who is friends with them. The first time I heard them I was so amazed at how together they played, how disciplined they are, and how much we actually have in common. The Lizárraga brothers, Poncho and Joel, became good friends right away and told me how much they loved the orchestra and were intrigued with what we do. At first, that was extremely surprising and quite fascinating to me.

I mentioned to them that we were gong on tour to Mexico City after Houston, and it turned out that they were going there too. Not only were we traveling to the same city, but also they were going to have a concert the same night as POA, and they were even staying at the same hotel as us. If all those coincidences weren´t enough, I even bumped into them on my flight from Houston to Mexico! So they gave me a ride to our hotel in their amazing Recodo bus and while we were on the way, I invited them to come to our concert.

We figured that they could make it to our concert and still be on time for their own performance in Xochimilco. So they did! All 18 of them came to our concert at Sala Nezahualcóyotl, and then they returned the favor by inviting all 75 of us to their concert that same night! It was incredible to see their faces sitting in the concert hall listening to our performance of Dvorak 9 and then, hours later, seeing our own musicians jumping and screaming at the front of the crowd during their midnight outdoor concert attended by 20,000 people.

For me it seemed like we were being a part of history, a history where good music is just good music, and what style it is doesn´t count anymore. We can become brothers through what we do, and we share so much, even when it seems like we come from opposite worlds. After all, both La Banda del Recodo and the POA use all acoustic instruments; no one is plugged in there or here. They play clarinets, trumpets, tubas, so do we. They rehearse really hard, they practice, and they work on their intonation, just like we do. The only thing I wish is that we were blessed with 20,000 people watching every concert we do. Oh, and outfits like theirs. Que viva La Banda El Recodo!

HOUSTON: So here we are, just starting our second international tour with POA, what a true adventure! We´re now in Houston, our first stop. For the past two days, we have been rehearsing with all of the artists that we performed with at Gloria Estefan´s tribute concert the night before the award ceremony. Tomorrow I get to go to the awards with my brother, Mane, as my "date."

The list of artists we´ve been working with is quite amazing: Patti Labelle, Jose Feliciano, Carlos Santana, Gloria herself, John Legend, and Andy Garcia, among many others. But most importantly, we´ve been collaborating for the entire time with the Miami Sound Machine, which has been a lot of fun.

It´s a totally different experience when you have to conduct an orchestra that is not only amplified and mic´ed, but is also surrounded by one of the best bands ever, the Miami Sound Machine, playing at an extremely high volume. The way they had us all set up was so that the drummer of the Miami Sound Machine (Enrique Garcia) was right behind me. Keeping time was not my responsibility, or an issue for anybody! It was definitely a fun time; the hours passed by rather quickly, even though we didn´t stop rehearsing for over 12 hours each day. It was really exhausting, but so exciting that we wouldn´t even think about how tired we were sometimes.

Finally, we got to perform for Gloria the medley that our friend Ljova arranged so well, and I was really happy when I heard Gloria's positive comments about the orchestra´s playing. She even said that she hadn´t heard any band play Conga as well as we did, which is quite a compliment!

Then tonight, I just came out of the performance, which went really well. We had some minor problems with certain artists starting and stopping at their will, making it so that the whole orchestra had to improvise behind them. But the POA made me so proud, as always, keeping up with all the impossible challenges. So I think in the end, we all walked out with a smile on our faces about what this orchestra can do, about how good music is just good music, and how fun it is to share it with all kinds of musicians.

SINGAPORE: Here I am all the way at the other end of the world in Singapore. I just walked out of the concert with the Academies Festival Orchestra at the Esplanade Concert Hall. It was a really special concert because the members of the orchestra were just so charged with energy and a desire to make music, and that´s always the most satisfying thing for me. Originally, Robert Redford was supposed to be the narrator for our performance of Peter and the Wolf and I was really looking forward to that. However, unfortunately, last minute he couldn´t make it, and instead, the organizers were really clever to find an amazing replacement, Geoffrey Rush. He is the most engaging, down to earth, and simply fun person to work with. I am such a fan of his movies, especially Shine and Pirates of the Caribbean . I have to admit, though, I was a little bit afraid of meeting Captain Barbosa when he showed up at our first rehearsal. But later, we got to be close friends and I even got him to take this picture!



At any rate, it was a fantastic concert. Geoffrey did really well, and so did the orchestra. It was really special to share the stage with Kiri Te Kanawa and the Vienna Boys Choir. (They are the cutest thing in their little sailor outfits!)