South Florida Classical Review

Anne Akiko Meyers performed Arturo Márquez’s “Fandango” with Stéphane Denève conducting the New World Symphony in their season-opening concert Saturday night in Miami Beach. Photo: Alex Markow

The New World Symphony’s Latin-themed season opener on Saturday night comprised a menu of works by Mexican and French composers. Artistic director Stéphane Denève asked the audience to welcome the orchestral academy’s 32 new members who he requested to stand for applause. One could hardly tell that there were that many first-year players on the New World Center stage, so well and smoothly integrated was the orchestral sonority and disciplined playing.

The evening’s longest score proved to be the weakest and most disappointing. Fandango for violin and orchestra by Arturo Márquez, written in 2021 for Anne Akiko Meyers, was essentially a 32-minute pops piece, masquerading as a concerto. 

In the opening “Folia Tropical,” the violin’s initial romantic gestures break into a dance melody. “Plegaria,” the second movement, forms the work’s strongest moment—an alluring Latin romanza with mariachi interjections. The “Fandanguito” finale is a brassy closer, spotlighting a flashy cadenza for the soloist. Márquez’s lightweight score is a crowd pleaser that falls easily on the ear and is just as easily forgettable.

Meyers commissioned the music and proved an accomplished soloist. (Her recording of the concerto with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic won a Latin Grammy award.) The three movements play to her strengths—speed and virtuosic fire. Her weaknesses are a slender sound and lack of tonal weight, qualities the score cleverly minimizes. Márquez is a colorful orchestrator, as evident in his widely played Danzon No. 2. Denève and the players gave their best to his sonic palette, bringing special gleam to the string writing.

Conducting fellow Ziwei Ma, beginning her second year at New World, opened the evening with Kauyumari by Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz.

Taking inspiration from the Huichol people’s hallucinogenic journey through peyote for the souls of their ancestors, the five-minute opus is a bona fide orchestral showpiece. Opening trumpet fanfares precede a catchy, dance-like figure that is continually repeated with minor changes. Exuberant brass and five percussionists in high gear anchored a virile performance. Ma’s high-energy conducting provided dynamic leadership, highlighting the music’s shifting meters and timbres.

Denève’s mastery of French repertoire took center stage in the program’s second half. Although Debussy spent only a few hours in Spain, his “Ibéria” from Images for Orchestra is a wonderfully atmospheric tonal picture, almost cinematic in scope. The first click of castanets sets the languid mood of “In the Streets and Byways,” captured through the impressionistic lens of Debussy’s portraiture. Denève’s minute attention to the instrument detail brought clarity to inner voicings usually unheard in the symphonic fabric. Clarinets, flutes, oboes and bassoons had real definition.

Two harps set the magical allure of “Perfume of the Night.” Denève’s subtly restrained reading conveyed the delicacy of Debussy’s scoring and the music’s misty exoticism. Bells tolled and strings plucked for the finale “Morning of a Festival Day.” Denève emphasized the Spanish-tinged rhythmic figurations, drawing lustrous string sound and impassioned playing from the winds and horns.

Ravel’s Boléro may be the most overplayed piece in the orchestral repertoire but there was nothing routine about Denève and the orchestra’s performance and innovative presentation. 

Projections above the stage and on the hall’s side walls of Miami City Ballet dancers Macarena Gimènez and Stanislav Olshanskyi in a sensual pas de deux by choreographer Nathalia Arja brought Ravel’s vignette back to its origins. The composer wrote the work in 1928 for dancer Ida Rubinstein. Arja’s choreography served both the music and the dancers astutely, In solo passages, Olshanskyi’s athleticism came to the fore while Gimènez’s mesmerizing grace as well as agility were on full display.

Denève led the familiar score with elegance rather than overcharged ferocity. Saxophone and English horn solos were given plush luminance while the horn solo added a touch of bluesy seasoning. The full-ensemble volleys exuded power without bombast. With the entire ensemble in top form, Denève made the music come alive in vibrant fashion.

The New World Symphony repeats the program 2 p.m. Sunday at the New World Center in Miami Beach.  nws.edu

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