Marin Alsop and Alisa Weilerstein

Marin Alsop conducts ‘Mexico’s second national anthem’ and an exciting new cello concerto by the Philharmonia’s Featured Composer Gabriela Ortiz.

Gabriela Ortiz’s concerto, written for tonight’s soloist Alisa Weilerstein, is inspired by the caves and underground rivers of the Yucatán peninsula (Dzonot in Mayan, and Cenotes in Spanish). Its four movements, ‘Vertical Light’, ‘Eye of the Jaguar’, ‘Jade’, and ‘The Toh Bird’, pay homage to this remarkable and threatened ecosystem.

Arturo Márquez is the son and grandson of Mexican mariachi musicians, and one of the country’s most admired composers. He describes the danzón, a favourite in the dance parlours and salons of Cuba and Mexico, as ‘music full of sensuality, which old Mexican people continue to dance with a touch of nostalgia’.

To top off this concert full of colour, Marin Alsop conducts Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, an enduring favourite with audiences and musicians alike. A beguiling solo violin melody represents the clever bride who spins captivating tales of sailors and shipwrecks, princes and princesses, to keep her husband the Sultan under her spell for 1001 nights.