Classroom keys to Mexican music.

• Author: Murphy-Larronde, Suzanne
• Position: Elizabeth de la Cruz Palomeque, La Casa de la Musica Mexicana - Interview

IT IS SHORTLY BEFORE four on a weekday afternoon and music teacher Elizabeth de la Cruz Palomeque is giving an impromptu concert for visitors to her classroom at La Casa de la Musica Mexicana, headquartered in a sprawling two-story building in the Lagunilla neighborhood near Mexico City's historic center. De la Cruz is a professional salterio player and with the ease and fluidity of a master, she plucks out a bolero melody on her 120-stringed wooden lap harp, a relative of models that originated in Greece and were brought to this country by the Spanish in the seventeenth century. Some two hundred years later at the height of its popularity, the instrument had become an essential component of the traditional music orchestras that performed at ballrooms, private parties, and public concerts, especially in Mexico City and the fertile heartland to the north and west known as El Bajio.

"I love the salterio," she proclaims, "its look, the way it's played, and of course the old waltzes, polkas, and boleros associated with it."

De la Cruz is not the only traditional music convert for which La Casa can take credit. Each year, more than two hundred students immerse themselves in one- to three-year study courses coveting musical history, theory, practice, and dissemination. This renewed interest comes none too soon, according to La Casa's director, Daniel Garcia Blanco. "Most of our country's musical education is based on European classical forms and geared to people who want careers with...