Dallas Symphony concert inspired by revolutionary figure who led Mexican slave revolt

In 1570, Yanga, an enslaved African and rumored royal descendant, led a slave revolt and fashioned a colony with followers within the mountains close to Veracruz, Mexico. It was the primary settlement of freed African slaves in North America, and efficiently resisted advances from the Spaniards.

This little-known story is the topic of an exhibit curated by the Latino Arts Project, now on show on the African American Museum of Dallas. Complementing the exhibit, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra offered a concert Tuesday evening on the Meyerson Symphony Center that explored connections between African and Latin American music. Featured visitor artists have been the Mexican-based Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, mates of former DSO music director Eduardo Mata, to whom the concert was devoted.

Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz’s Yanga, for choir, percussion quartet and orchestra, units a Spanish libretto by Santiago Martín Bermúdez that pays tribute to the eponym’s revolutionary spirit. It additionally weaves in a chant from the Congo. In a spoken introduction, Ortiz known as the work “a periphrasis” of a future opera.

In one motion over 17 minutes, the music options energetic Latin rhythms, with distinguished brass and percussion. The percussion quartet whips up a storm with a battery of African devices, pounding hand drums, placing picket sticks and making each scratchy and shaking sounds with dried gourds. The refrain typically interlocks rhythmically with the percussion and orchestra, but in addition shares reflective passages, the place brightly layered chords are darkened by close-wrought dissonances.

With Tambuco entrance and heart, and the busy orchestration, the Dallas Chamber Choir, ready by director Jon L. Culpepper, struggled to be heard in dynamics above a mezzo-forte. When audible, the group equipped polished contributions, excepting occasional bitter tuning. Supertitles may have helped audiences observe the textual content extra simply.

Led by assistant conductor Maurice Cohn, an American in his 20s, the DSO supplied crisp rhythms and vibrant orchestral colours. Ortiz joined the orchestra for hearty applause.

Barranco, an association of conventional Afro-Peruvian music for percussion quartet by Tambuco member Alfredo Bringas, unfolds in two episodes launched by guitar solos. The percussionists elaborate on the guitar’s concepts in festive barrages of sound, drawing every kind of articulations from cajons — boxy hand drums — volleying concepts forwards and backwards and constructing to thunderous peals.

The largest takeaway from the remainder of this system, for orchestra alone, was Cohn’s efficient management. He skillfully steered the DSO by the rhythmic complexities of Four Dances from Estancia, by Twentieth-century Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera. Both right here and in Duke Ellington’s Solitude, organized for string orchestra, celesta and harp by Morton Gould, Cohn additionally coaxed finely lyrical enjoying. Twentieth-century Mexican composer Silvestre Reveueltas’ Sensemayá, inspired by a ritualistic killing of a snake, was aptly darkish and mysterious.

With restricted rehearsal time, there have been understandably some slips in intonation and coordination. And the ultimate dance within the Ginastera generally felt extra harried than thrilling. Still, Cohn proved a mannequin of readability and economic system, precisely what this program wanted.

In a non-subscription concert designed to deliver newcomers to the Meyerson, the viewers was notably youthful and extra numerous than regular, together with many Spanish audio system. They have been additionally audibly excited to be there. But is there a technique to politely discourage speaking in addition to image and video taking throughout concert events?