Complete Concert Guide - Ortiz, Montero & Rimsky-Korsakov: Apr 10–12, 2026
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I interviewed Steve Hearn, Acting Principal Timpani (Assistant Principal Timpani & Section Percussion) of the Colorado Symphony. We covered a LOT in these 20 minutes including Animal vs Gonzo, how to properly high five, and of course a lot of nerding out on the timpani and percussion in this program.
And now... The Program!
Gabriela Ortiz
Antrópolis
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Gabriela Ortiz (1964 - ) is a Mexican composer and educator currently living in Mexico City where she teaches at UNAM, despite having a heavy travel schedule with composition residencies in Amsterdam, London, and Barcelona. Ortiz is enjoying some hard earned and well deserved recognition at this midpoint time in her career, having won 6 Grammy awards in the past 2 years for 3 major works: Revolución diamantina - a ballet score for orchestra and vocal soloists, Dzonot cello concerto, and Yanga for chorus, orchestra, and 4 percussion soloists - the latter of which will be opening the Colorado Symphony’s 26-27 season in September! Ortiz has also been composer in residence for Carnegie Hall and the Curtis Institute of Music, and is a Guggenheim fellowship recipient.
While retaining essential Mexican characteristics and subject matter, Gabriela Ortiz’s music is intentionally multicultural and translates easily to audiences around the world.
About the music:
Ortiz composed Antrópolis in 2017 on a commission request for a short, brilliant, and light work to celebrate composer Philip Glass’s 80th birthday. It was premiered at Carnegie Hall by Carlos Prieto and the Louisiana Philharmonic that same year.
Antrópolis is a portmanteau combining the Spanish colloquial term for nightclubs - antros - with the Greek word for city - polis. A fitting title for a piece that narrates the sound of of the city through Mexico’s legendary dance halls and nightclubs.
This is what Gabriela Ortiz wrote about Antrópolis:
It is a piece in which I wanted to pay a very personal tribute to some of those "antros" or emblematic dance halls of Mexico City that left a special sonorous imprint in my memory. These cabarets or dance halls that represent the nostalgia for rumberas and live dance orchestras, such as "El Bombay," where it is said that Che Guevara would twirl; or the "Salón Colonia," which seems to have come out of dreams taken from a film of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema. Who doesn't remember the fun ballroom "Los Infiernos,” a perfect place for those who after a long day at work would leave their cubicles to go dancing, drink, and listen to music. Finally, the memory of the bar "Tutti Frutti" leaves an impression, where I first met the punk couple who own the "antro", and where you could listen to experimental music from the 1980s. Antrópolis is the sonorous reflection of a city through its "antros", including the accumulation of experiences that we bring, and that form an essential part of our history in this very complex but fascinating Mexico City.
As she indicated, the piece is comprised of four sections representing the vibe of four different antros, but the first thing we hear is a rather unusual (but super cool!) huge timpani solo. Los Infiernos gets us going with cumbia rhythms. El Bombay features a texture of exoticism with vibraphone and cowbell. There is an extended timpani solo cadenza at this point before launching into the punk energy of El Tutti Frutti. Salón Colonia begins with an orchestra-wide vocalization and closes out the piece with a spirited mambo. It’s a great opener to a concert filled with rhythm and perfumey melodic storytelling.
A typical performance lasts about 11 minutes.
Resources:
Gabriela Montero
Piano Concerto No 1 "Latin"
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Gabriela Montero (1970 - ) is a Venezuelan pianist and composer, renowned for her ability to glide easily between the strictures of traditionally composed classical literature and free improvisation in multiple styles including those of traditional classical music composers.
She remembers picking out tunes on a toy piano while she was still young enough to be in a crib. Her parents were able to get her into formal piano lessons at four, she made her first public performance at five, and at eight she made her concerto debut at the National Theatre of Venezuela in Caracas. After this, at age nine, she and her family relocated to the US so she could study piano with a teacher in Miami. Even at that young age she recognized she needed more than just to execute technical prowess on the piano, but to also engage in “spontaneous composition”. It caused a rift with that teacher and she stopped playing piano for a few years. Eventually she decided to try returning. She applied and received a full scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she says she considers her music education truly began at age 20.
Montero is known for her ability to produce complex improvisations in classical music styles, often on the spot based on tunes provided by audience members. "When improvising," Montero says, "I connect to my audience in a completely unique way – and they connect with me. Because improvisation is such a huge part of who I am, it is the most natural and spontaneous way I can express myself. I have been improvising since my hands first touched the keyboard, but for many years I kept this aspect of my playing secret.”
About the music:
Gabriela Montero composed Piano Concerto No. 1 in 2016 and premiered it that same year in Leipzig before recording it in with Orchestra of the Americas (you can watch that recording below!).
About the work, Montero says:
“It is a chiaroscuro reflection on who we are as a continent, dark and light. It has all the rhythms, the charm and the sensuality that people love about Latin America — but unfortunately, those characteristics keep the world from actually noticing what’s really going on. So it’s not a political piece, but it’s a statement: Not everything that glitters is gold.”
The concerto got its nickname 'Latin' based on the characteristic sounds Montero mentions. It’s a 3 movement work that follows the standard pattern of Fast - Slow - Fast, and incorporates dance rhythms and harmonies closely associated with music from Latin American culture.
The first movement begins with a slow introduction before launching into a Mambo. Listen for a virtuosic marimba solo in this movement.
The second movement is a more contemplative nocturne with a quicker middle section and features a duo between solo piano and clarinet.
The last movement comes right out of the second movement as the concerto dances to its finish. The brass, timpani, and bongos bring special energy to this movement.
A typical performance lasts about 30 minutes.
Resources:
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Scheherazade
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Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) was a well-known Russian composer in the group known as The Mighty Five along with Mily Balakirev, Cesar Cuí, Modest Mussorgsky, and Alexander Borodin. This group was very interested in developing a nationalistic style that leaned into non Western European themes and techniques, instead incorporating Russian tales and folk songs and maintaining a general fascination with the harmonic and rhythmic sounds of Asia. Rimsky-Korsakov was an enthusiastic adopter of this development but also, later in his career arc, committed himself to studying and incorporating Western European classical music methods. This hybrid expression helped create a uniquely modern Russian sound that also had international influence.
His most famous works are routinely programmed by symphony orchestras around the world and often used in film and television dramas due to the colorful orchestration and dramatic elements in the music.
About the Music:
Rimsky-Korsakov composed Scheherazade in 1888 as a symphonic suite based on the frame story and scenes from the collection of stories called One Thousand and One Nights.
Scheherazade is titled after the primary character in One Thousand and One Nights who saves her own life through dazzling storytelling with cliffhanger endings night after night.
Rimsky-Korsakov conceptualized the piece as a symphonic suite of four movements that have a shared theme. His intention was to create a general sense of fantasy on Eastern auditory narratives.
Rimsky-Korsakov wrote a brief introduction that he intended for use with the score as well as the program for the premiere:
"The Sultan Schakhriar, convinced that all women are false and faithless, vowed to put to death each of his wives after the first nuptial night. But the Sultana Scheherazade saved her life by entertaining her lord with fascinating tales, told in a series, for a thousand and one nights. The Sultan, consumed with curiosity, postponed from day to day the execution of his wife, and finally repudiated his bloody vow entirely.”
Rimsky-Korsakov initially avoided giving illustrative titles to each of the four movements, but in the end assigned them as:
The Sea and Sinbad's Ship
The Story of the Kalendar Prince
The Young Prince and the Young Princess
Festival at Baghdad. The Sea. The Ship Breaks against a Cliff Surmounted by a Bronze Horseman
It’s easy to hear narrative elements in the music that seem to support the titles of each movement, but there’s also another great narrative happening which is the story of the orchestra. There are so many juicy moments for each of the 4 families of instruments on stage, and within those families there are some spectacularly flashy solos. It’s a piece of music which shows off the muscle and flair of the orchestra as much as anything else.
Scheherazade is one of Rimsky-Korsakov’s most famous works and is performed frequently by symphony orchestras around the world. It has also captured the imagination of many other composers and storytellers. A very racy adaptation was made in 1910 for Ballet Russe, Sergei Prokofiev composed Fantasia on Scheherazade in 1926 and even made a piano roll recording of it, and Gene Kelly used it in the film Invitation to the Dance. The punniest award goes to Skip Martin for his 1959 adaptation Scheherajazz. Approximately one gazillion figure skaters have used it in competition, and in my opinion there is no music that could’ve been better chosen for the soundtrack to Pedro Almodóvar’s excellent film Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown.
A typical performance of Scheherazade lasts about 45 minutes.
Resources:
🤓CALLING YOU NERD TYPES!!🤓 Check out the following two vids to get some behind the scenes action on the violin, clarinet, and bassoon solos. 😎😎😎
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