PRSO to throw free-for-all pops concert on Saturday.

PRSO Associate Music Director Rafael Enrique Irizarry and co-host Leila Martínez Cabello, aka Maestra Leila, are on a “manifest mission to educate, inspire and edify,” he said. (Facebook via Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico - Página Oficial)

By PEGGY ANN BLISS

Special to The STAR

Where do serious, classical music and sentimental pop music become as one?

At a Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra (PRSO) concert, of course. Music is music, but the line often blurs despite many would-be concertgoers’ resistance to the more esoteric repertoire.

Here’s a chance to get in through the front door, to be opened wide Saturday for a free banquet of the past century’s favorite tunes, including jazz.

“It is a collage of sights and sounds,” said Associate Music Director Rafael Enrique Irizarry in a text chat with The STAR.

The PRSO will host the year’s best freebie at the island’s temple to the world’s best music.

The orchestra was created in 1957 by Pablo Casals, immortal Catalan cellist/conductor whose mother was Puerto Rican, and who lived his last years here.

Those who hesitate to fork over a few hard- earned bills for the Caribbean’s best interpreters of Mozart and Mahler may be seduced by a free concert of the best of hummable tunes from the past century from Broadway, Hollywood, Tin Pan Alley and other secret venues. These funky hideaways and historic theaters spawned the best of American musical treasures, while Puerto Rico itself gave the world Hispano‐Caribbean and Afro-Caribbean beats, such as “Piel Canela” (Cinnamon Skin) by Bobby Capó, who compiled “The Puerto Rico Songbook.” Not to forget Rafael Hernández or Pedro Flores or the roster of internationally acclaimed composers from the island.

Still photo from “Star Wars” (1977), which “saved classical music in the Western world,” Irizarry said. (Wikipedia)

The reason for this musical windfall is the cancellation of the much anticipated creator and propagator of Afro-Puerto Rican jazz throughout the world, Wiliam Cepeda, of the famed family from Loíza, an impressive clan which has brightened almost every possible corner of the world with the African-Rican beat.

Cepeda, conductor and virtuoso trombonist, will be rescheduled in the 2026-27 orchestra season, Irizarry said.

“But, man alive, what a glorious collage of superb music,” said Irizarry, who curated and will conduct the substitute event. “This will be accessible to all in every sense of the word.”

Irizarry will share hosting with sidekick Leila Martínez Cabello, known as Maestra Leila, a veteran educator who will do her best to soften the “stodginess and holier than thou” tone often attributed to him, Irizarry coyly admits.

The narration will be in a light bantering tone in their “manifest mission to educate, inspire and edify,” he said.

Unable to refrain from praising his beloved “Star Wars,” which the conductor notes will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year, Irizarry promises a taste of the score by prolific American composer John Williams, his own special favorite. In composing this score, Williams harked back to two German geniuses named Richard Strauss, who penned “Thus Spake Zarathustra” (now better known as “The Star Wars Theme”), and Wagner, who introduced to pop music the concept of the Leitmotiv intrinsic to his operas such as “Lohengrin,” known for its timeless “Wedding March” (Here Comes the Bride).

“Star Wars,” Irizarry went so far as to say, “saved classical music in the Western world.”

Irizarry has combed the orchestra archives in an effort to satisfy his people’s thirst for music that they can relate to before tackling the more austere masters. Among them, Bartok and Stravinsky and Barber, and scores more from the past century the orchestra has presented over the years.

How about a taste of Richard Rodgers in “The Sound of Music,” or Andrew Lloyd Webber of “Phantom of the Opera” fame?

What could be better than Harold Arlen’s catchy melodies from “The Wizard of Oz,” with the Academy Award-winning melody “Over the Rainbow” immortalized by Judy Garland in the 1939 film?

Or more modern memories from the scores of “The Little Mermaid” or “Superman”? or “An American Tale”?

The two-hour concert, entitled “The Symphony for Everyone, Beautiful Melodies,” is designed to make the symphony accessible to all in every sense of the word, Irizarry said.

“Puerto Ricans have become niche consumers,” he said. “We must appeal to all of them. But never by slipping into the lesser common denominator.

“Our message is clear and vociferous, our best musicians, our greatest music.”

The free pops concert will be held Saturday at 7 p.m. in the Pablo Casals Symphony Hall at Luis A. Ferré Performing Arts Center in Santurce.