The hills of Pacific Palisades were alive with the sound of music last week at the home of Cheech and Natasha Marin. Known for their intimate art and music salons, the Marins held this one to benefit the Contemporary Craft Council, which supports the Craft and Folk Art Museum on Museum Row in the Miracle Mile. Natasha, a classically trained concert pianist, performed with mezzo-soprano Victoria Shereshevskaya, who was visiting Los Angeles for the first time. Selections included Tchaikovsky’s “Amidst the Din of the Ball,” Russian folk songs and “I Feel Pretty” from “West Side Story.” Cheech, best known as half of the legendary comedy duo Cheech and Chong, has been an avid collector and ambassador of Chicano art for decades. “You cannot love or hate Chicano art unless you see it,” Cheech told the approximately 100 people in attendance. “It is the quintessential American art.” His longtime friend, artist Frank Romero, also addressed the crowd, providing a quick personal history and an overview of Chicano art in Los Angeles, including the record-breaking Los Four exhibit at LACMA in 1974. “Cheech was the first buyer of my stuff,” he said. “I didn’t sell it for enough.” Two of Romero’s large diptyches that were replicated for the Wilshire/Normandie Metro Station hang on the Marins’ dining-room walls. Romero and his wife Sharon split their time between their homes/studios in Los Angeles and the South of France, and Romero discussed the inspiring landscapes that he recreates in his work. On an easel behind him sat “Mirmande in the Snow,” made in the small French village where they live. Before his success as a painter, Romero was a graphic designer and worked for Charles and Ray Eames and Frank Gehry. Started about three years ago because many of Natasha’s musician friends would play for each other at social gatherings, the salons now number two or three a year and the Marins no longer know everyone in attendance. It was their way of bringing friends from different worlds together. “Cheech is always hanging out with Chicano artists, people he collects and just meeting new people,” says the Russian-born Natasha. “It was a great way to include more of our friends and new people that we meet.? The recent salon was much bigger than she anticipated, but she’s hopeful “everybody had a good time.” Exposing people to classical music is important to Natasha, and her aim is to make it accessible and keep it relevant. She thinks people enjoy the salon setting, listening to different genres of music and having personal interactions with the musicians. “If someone comes from Europe, we want to introduce them,” as they did with Shereshevskaya, who was animated and seemed delighted to be performing in such an intimate setting. The walls in the home are filled with art, which, Natasha says, “If it were up to Cheech I think we would be changing weekly,” but instead is changed about once a year. Discussing his nearly 500-piece collection, Cheech tells his wife, “You’re not an art collector until you have storage.” His is one of the premier Chicano art collections in the country. Additional pieces are temporarily displayed during a salon, and he told the assembled guests that he has “been honored to be able to collect “Chicano art for many years.” He has a full-time curator, and the show “Chicanitas: Small Paintings from the Cheech Marin Collection (size doesn’t matter)” is currently at the Whatcom Museum in Bellingham, Washington, and will travel to Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, this spring. Natasha, a fan of 19th-century art and landscapes, finds the styles of Russian and Chicano art similar. The couple is trying to find a way to exhibit part of the collection in Russia. “I think the cultures are close enough: they’re not reserved, they’re always very imaginative, a lot of drama. There is a lot of connection between what you see in European schools and Chicano artists.” Coming from St. Petersburg, “one of most important cultural places in the world,” afforded Natasha exposure to culture from a young age. She began piano lessons at age six, studying at the Special Music School for Gifted Children. Natasha explains that in Russia they look at all young children, and see what they’re best suited for. Being good at both sports and music, she was offered special training by the State for both. Her parents thought music was a better fit. She stayed in the program until her family moved to Los Angeles in 1995, and she eventually went back and forth and received her B.A. from Rimsky-Korsakov Music College, and M.A.’s from both St. Petersburg State Conservatory and UCLA. When Natasha was about five, her parents started her on violin lessons, but she didn’t like it, so they switched her to piano, which she enjoyed from the beginning. The Marins have lived in the Highlands for about a year; before that they called Malibu home, and it was on the beach there where they got married in 2009 with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa officiating. The couple met through friends “by accident” at a party. “Cheech is Google-able, but it’s still better when real people introduce you,” Natasha says. She was unfamiliar with Cheech and Chong at the time. At times, the married couple have been able to blend their careers, which at first happened by accident a couple of years ago at the Hollywood Bowl. They performed “Mexican Americans” from “Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie,” he with a thick accent, she playing a Chopin intro for the song, and the crowd loved them. They have performed that song elsewhere, including at Cal State Northridge, Cheech?s alma mater, and developed a cabaret show for a fundraiser in Palm Springs. Natasha’s duo piano project “Double Sharp,” with best friend Maria Demina, premiered in 2008 and will be touring nationwide this year, after previews in Los Angeles in June. She enjoys this “innovative and cool” production that brings in elements of fashion and lighting to the repertoire. In the past, Demina has played with Palisadian violinist Tiffany Hu. In September of this year, Natasha will perform in Paris and Alsace with Shereshevskaya, a program that will include songs by American, French and Russian composers. Also in September, she will perform a piano duo with Gerald Robbins in La Jolla. Opening up their house to share art and culture with their friends, old and new, gives the Marins a lot of joy. “Being able to meet all those artists is the best part. That’s why we have the salons,” Natasha says.
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