PRSO takes island’s rich classical music menu to Boston
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 34 minutes ago
- 3 min read
By PEGGY ANN BLISS
Special to THE STAR
Mega bucks superstar Bad Bunny isn’t the Caribbean island’s only musical treasure, and the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra (PRSO) is about to see that everybody knows it.
Friday night in chilly Boston, in the prestigious Symphony Hall, the 80-member group, under the baton of Chilean conductor Maximiano Valdés will bring an evening of rhythms and warmth from home with a repertoire entirely of native (and adopted native) composers, from danza king Juan Morel Campos through Jack Delano, Roberto Sierra and Federico Cordero to the latest crop of Borinquen’s composers.
This historic debut comes at a time of unprecedented tension between Puerto Ricans and a shut-down government, restricting food and housing aid to its poorest citizens, sparking large-scale protests.
Retired PRSO violinist Elena Sherbanesco, who recalled her own visits with the orchestra to New York’s Carnegie Hall, Washington, D.C. and Coruña, Spain, praised the PRSO’s “connecting with the international stage at this time of division, proof that music brings us together.”
Friday at 7:30 p.m. will be the one-time opportunity for Bostonians to hear this rich musical tapestry of ethnicities and traditions under the “E Pluribus Unum Series” designed to promote cultural diversity across the United States.
The program will showcase close to seven dozen island musicians, including cuatro soloist Luis Sanz, under the auspices of Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción, a cultural organization in Massachusetts’ capital city. Boston, whose Puerto Rican population is 2.8% of the city’s total, is an hour away from Worcester and 90 minutes from Springfield, both of which have larger Puerto Rican diaspora populations. People of Puerto Rican ancestry account for one in four Latinos in the area. The all-Puerto Rican program will include selections from Sierra’s “Sixth Symphony,” “La Bruja de Loíza” (The Witch of Loíza), and Cordero’s “Descarga para un concierto criollo” for orchestra and cuatro, Morel Campos’ beloved 19th century danza “Felices Días” (Happy Days), José Pujals’ “Fragmentos de mi tierra” (Fragments of My Land) and other works by Angélica Negrón and Luis Quintana.
Puerto Rican music spanning the past two centuries has been profoundly influenced by the currents from Europe, particularly Spain, the Taíno heritage, African rhythms and modern North American currents, among other elements.
Remembering a heritage
The occasion comes as director Valdés prepares to leave his post after 18 years at the helm. The date also seems aptly chosen in a month of celebration and Thanksgiving, between the 67th anniversary of the PRSO’s first concert on Nov. 6, 1958, in the island’s west coast city of Mayagüez, birthplace of the mother of Catalunian cellist Pablo (Pau) Casals, whose legacy is directly connected to the orchestra and the island’s classical music development. Nov. 19 brings Puerto Rican Discovery Day, commemorating the day in 1493 that Spain -- via Italian explorer Cristoforo Colombo, alias Christobal Colón or Christopher Columbus -- first set foot on a settled territory that the European kingdom would later pillage and colonize. In Boston, the date recalls the Pilgrims’ arrival on Plymouth Rock near Christmas 1620 and their first harvest (Thanksgiving) in autumn 1621.
Even the concert title, “Melodías de mi tierra” (Melodies of My Land), underlines the cheerful weather report and botanical biographies from southern climes: “On the Ethereal Nature of Bioluminescence” by Luis Quintana, alluding to Puerto Rico’s natural phenomena of underwater reef lighting; “Morivivi,” by Negrón, in reference to the curious native plant which opens and closes as if dying and reviving; and “Fragmentos de mi tierra” by Pujals.
But Puerto Rico is not all idyllic sunsets, as Sierra’s aptly named “Reflexion Urbana” (Reflections on the City) reminds concertgoers of the cacophonous camaraderie of the San Juan urban landscape.
A sneak preview of the Boston showcase was offered to the Puerto Rican public last weekend in Pablo Casals Symphony Hall, part of the Luis A. Ferré Performing Arts Center in Santurce, which will join Symphony Hall in underwriting the trip.
“It is thrilling to have our too-well-kept secret heard on one of the world’s great stages,” former PRSO principal clarinetist Kathleen Jones told The STAR. “Classical music from Puerto Rico is deserving to be heard in any world venue.”
The PRSO, which probably has a higher concentration of local natives than any major mainland orchestra, is made up of a high concentration of graduates of the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, which in turn is fed by several public music high schools throughout the island. The orchestra hopes to leave a powerful message of excellence fueled by its rich, blended heritage.
To be sure, beneath all this preparation and pride runs one constant theme: Bad Bunny may have his fans, but as for centuries of creativity and consciousness, he can’t hold a torch to us!