Ravinia 2022, Issue 4

BENJAMIN EALOVEGA CARLOS MIGUEL PRIETO, conductor Recognized by Musical America as the 2019 Conductor of the Year, Carlos Miguel Prieto is one of the most influential Mexican cul- tural leaders of his generation, having been the music director of the Orquesta Sinfóni- ca Nacional de México since 2007. Prieto is renowned for championing Latin American music and new compositions—he has led over 100 premieres of works by Mexican and American composers, many of which he commissioned—as well as the repertory of Black and African American composers such as Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, and Courtney Bryan, among many others. This coming season marks Prieto’s final concerts as music director of the Louisiana Philharmon- ic Orchestra, a post he has held since 2006, proudly contributing to the cultural renewal of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Since 2008 he has also been music director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería, a hand- picked orchestra that performs a two-month- long series of summer programs in Mexico City, and earlier this year he was named mu- sic director of the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra following a season as its artistic ad- visor. Prieto is frequently engaged as a guest conductor with top ensembles across North America, including the Cleveland and Min- nesota Orchestras and Dallas, Houston, To- ronto, and New World Symphonies, and has enjoyed a particularly close and successful relationship with the Chicago Symphony Or- chestra. His recent highlights abroad include engagements with the London Philharmon- ic, NDR Elbphilharmonie, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Hallé Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Spanish National Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and Auckland Philharmonia. Alongside Gustavo Dudamel, Prieto has worked closely with the Orches- tra of the Americas—an ensemble of young musicians from the entire continent—since its founding in 2002, first as its principal con- ductor and since 2011 as music director. He led the ensemble at Carnegie Hall in 2010 for the 40th anniversary of the World Economic Forum and on a 2018 European tour to the Rheingau and Edinburgh festivals and Ham- burg’s Elbphilharmonie, among other venues. Carlos Miguel Prieto made his Ravinia debut in 2013 and is returning for his third perfor- mance at the festival mother, who also were founding members of the folk music ensemble Los Folkloristas. Her hometown of Mexico City also offered classical music training and wide access to global art- ists. Ortiz studied composition at the Conser- vatorio Nacional de Música withMario Lavista and at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México with Federico Ibarra before traveling to England on a British Council Fellowship for advanced composition studies with Robert Saxton at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Subsequently, Ortiz completed a doc- torate in electroacoustic music composition at The City University of London. Ortiz’s wide-ranging compositions for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, orchestra, electroacoustic groupings, opera, dance, the- ater, and film have been performed widely and commissioned by such artists as the Kro- nos Quartet, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gus- tavo Dudamel, Royal Liverpool Philharmon- ic, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, and soprano Dawn Upshaw, among many others. She has received numerous awards, including a Ful- bright Fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, Rockefel- ler Foundation grant, first-prize honors in the Silvestre Revueltas National Chamber Music Competition and Alicia Urreta Composition Competition, induction into Mexico’s Aca- demia de Artes, and the Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes, awarded by the Mexican government. The orchestral score Téenek (Invenciones de territorio) emerged from a commission by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and conduc- tor Gustavo Dudamel, who gave the world premiere on October 12, 2017. Afterward, Du- damel called the work “one of the most bril- liant I have ever directed. Its color, its texture, the harmony and the rhythm that it contains are all something unique. Gabriela possesses a particular capacity to showcase our Latin identity.” “Téenek” refers to an indigenous language spoken by the Téenek (also called Huastecos) people in the Huasteca region of central and northeastern Mexico. Though Gabriela Ortiz clearly associated with a people and a place, Téenek emphasizes through the kaleidoscopic diversity of its musical material the values of acceptance of difference and the irrelevance of boundaries. AARON COPLAND (1900–1990) El Salón México Scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English horn, two B-flat clarinets, E-flat clarinet, and bass clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, xylophone, cymbals, brush, gourd, temple blocks, wood block, bass drum, side drum, tabor, piano, and strings “Mexico offers something fresh and pure and wholesome—a quality which is deeply un- conventionalized. The source of it is the Indi- an blood, which is so prevalent. I sensed the influence of the Indian background every- where—even in the landscape. And I must be something of an Indian myself or how else explain the sympathetic chord it awakens in me,” wrote Copland following his first trip south of the border. The congeniality of Mex- ico completely absorbed Copland during his five-month visit in 1932–33. The conductor Carlos Chávez introduced him to many local attractions in and around Mexico City. While strolling through the streets one evening, they entered a nightclub called El Salón Méx- ico, where Copland first experienced the be- witching charm of native Mexican music. These haunting melodies and spirited rhythms fascinated Copland, who soon be- gan an orchestral work, entitled El Salón México , which incorporates actual folk melodies in a type of “modified potpourri.” Chávez conducted the Orquésta Sinfónica de México in the world premiere on August 27, 1937. Ironically, this “Mexican” composition became one of the most popular pieces by Copland, the “dean of American composers.” Boosey & Hawkes, hoping to capitalize on the success of El Salón México , commissioned arrangements for piano solo and for two Aaron Copland pianos. Copland recommended a promising young musician, who “was also badly in need of money and would therefore do the job for a really miserable fee”—Leonard Bernstein. JOSÉ PABLO MONCAYO (1912–1958) Huapango Scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two B-flat clarinets and E-flat clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, two trombones, timpani, güiro, maracas, tambourine, tamburo indiano (mrdangam), bass drum, claves, sonajas (jingles), xylophone, harp, and strings A native of Guadalajara, Mexico, José Pablo Moncayo studied at the Conservatorio Na- cional with Carlos Chávez (composition), Candelario Huízar (harmony), and Eduardo Hernández Moncada (piano). Aaron Cop- land also taught him composition privately for a short time. Moncayo joined the Orques- ta Sinfónica de México as a percussionist in 1931. Three years later, he joined Daniel Ayala, Salvador Contreras, and Blas Galindo—all former students of Chávez—in forming the Gruppo de Los Cuatro, an organization that promoted Mexican music. From 1949 to 1954, Moncayo conducted the Orquésta Sinfónica de México. His most familiar composition, and one of the most memorable orchestral works by any Mexican musician, is the brilliant Huapango (1941). The huapango is a fast, rhythmic cou- ples dance from Mexico. Moncayo incorpo- rated three actual folk dances: El siquisirii, El balaju , and El gavilán (The Hawk). –Program notes © 2022 Todd E. Sullivan José Pablo Moncayo RAVINIA MAGAZINE • AUGUST 1 – AUGUST 14, 2022 30 I