Hill Auditorium
Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería
$12-20 student tickets available
“Prieto’s noble interpretation and the commitment and enthusiasm of the players, who clearly love working with him, resulted in a performance of such blazing conviction that it was impossible not to be moved by it.” (The Guardian)
Carlos Miguel Prieto, celebrated as a rising star both domestically and abroad, was named 2019 Conductor of the Year by Musical America and is the foremost Mexican conductor of his generation. He serves as artistic director of México City’s Minería Symphony, which was founded in the 1970s and is widely regarded as the leading musical institution in México — one that regularly supports and programs Mexican composers. Housed at the Academia de Música del Palacio de Minería, the name honors the period from the 18th century when mining was one of the region’s most important economic activities.
Joining the Minería Symphony in their first Ann Arbor performance is Latin Grammy Award-winning pianist/composer Gabriela Montero, a frequent Prieto collaborator. Montero, known for her passionate virtuosity and brilliant improvisation, performs her first piano concerto, a soulful work showing the complexities of South American life. “Montero’s playing has everything: crackling rhythmic brio, subtle shadings, steely power in climactic moments, soulful lyricism in the ruminative passages and, best of all, unsentimental expressivity.” (The New York Times)
The concert includes works by two Mexican composers: Carlos Chávez (1899- 1978), an ethnomusicologist whose Sinfonía India reflects the harmonies, rhythms, melodies, and instruments of the Indian cultures of Mexico, and Silvestre Revueltas, whose concert suite La noche de los mayas depicts Mexico’s pre-Columbian heritage and is drawn from his highly-regarded 1939 film score.
Program
Gabriela Ortiz Kauyumari
Carlos Chávez Symphony No. 2 (“Sinfonía India”)
Gabriela Montero Piano Concerto No. 1 (“Latin”)
Silvestre Revueltas La noche de los mayas
[Encore] Arturo Márquez Danzón No. 2
[Encore] José Pablo Moncayo Huapango
Join host Doyle Armbrust for “The Society of Disobedient Listeners” — a special pre-performance talk, 6:30 pm in the lower lobby of Hill Auditorium. Special guest and composer Gustavo Leone is a Professor Emeritus of Music at the Department of Fine and Performing Arts of Loyola University Chicago.
Thank You to Our Sponsors
PRINCIPAL SPONSOR
MEDIA PARTNERS
Carlos Miguel Prieto is considered the leading Mexican conductor of his generation. A highly respected cultural leader, Prieto is Musical America’s 2019 Conductor of the Year. He possesses a wide-ranging repertoire, has led over 100 world premieres, and is a champion of American and Latin American composers. Prieto serves as Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Music Director of North Carolina Symphony and Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería in Mexico, and Music Director of the Orchestra of the Americas. Prieto is a graduate of Princeton University and received his MBA from Harvard Business School.
Gabriela Montero’s visionary interpretations and unique compositional gifts have garnered her critical acclaim and a devoted following on the world stage. Celebrated for her exceptional musicality and ability to improvise, Montero has performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras to date, including: the New York, Royal Liverpool, Rotterdam, Dresden, Oslo, Vienna Radio, and Netherlands Radio philharmonic orchestras; the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, NDR Sinfonieorchester Hamburg, NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, Zürcher Kammerorchester, and Academy of St Martin in the Fields; and the Yomiuri Nippon, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Houston, Atlanta, Toronto, Baltimore, Vienna, Barcelona, Lucerne, and Sydney symphony orchestras; the Belgian National Orchestra, and the Cleveland Orchestra, orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin, and Residentie Orkest.
Doyle Armbrust is a Chicago-based violist and co-founder of the three-times Grammy-nominated Spektral Quartet. His writing has infiltrated program books at the Chicago, St. Louis, and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestras as well as publications including Crain’s Chicago Business, Chicago Magazine, Time Out Chicago, and The Chicago Tribune.
In UMS’s 2022/23 season, Doyle hosts “The Society of Disobedient Listeners” — an interactive pre-concert experience reconnecting listeners to the subversive, visceral, and even revolutionary elements of the evening’s program. Conceived as an anti-lecture, “Disobedient Listeners” draws the great music of the past into proximity with the felicities and calamities of modern life.
Composer Gustavo Leone is a Professor Emeritus of Music at the Department of Fine and Performing Arts of Loyola University Chicago. His principal composition teachers included Gerardo Gandini, Marta Lambertini, Ralph Shapey, Shulamit Ran, and John Eaton. He also studied electronic music with Howard Sandroff. Leone is a recipient of a Walter Hinrichsen Award given by the American Academy of Art and Letters. His music is included in the catalogs of C.F. Peters, New York, Toccata Classics, and Naxos Recordings. Ensembles such as Cuarteto Q-Arte, Grant Park Festival Orchestra, the Symphonic Orchestra of Michoacán, the Chicago Sinfonietta and the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, amongst others, have played and commissioned Leone’s works. His work for the theater includes productions at the Yale Repertory Theatre, the Goodman Theater, Victory Gardens Theater, and Teatro Vista.