A dozen years after they had to bow out of a concert with their hometown Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Calexico’s Joey Burns and John Convertino made good on the date on Saturday, Jan. 13.
TSO Music Director Jose Luis Gomez conducted the orchestra, while Burns and Convertino and their Calexico band members Sergio Mendoza, Brian Lopez, Scott Colbert, Rick Peron and Jacob Valenzuela performed some of their biggest songs.
DeVotchKa’s Tom Hagerman wrote arrangements for five of the songs specifically for the TSO concert, which was part of the 2024 HSL Properties Tucson Jazz Festival.
DeVotchKa, a folk/indie rock band from Denver, Colorado, has had close Tucson ties since they recorded their first three albums at WaveLab Studios in the early 2000s.
Calexico was supposed to perform with the TSO back in 2012 but bowed out due to a scheduling conflict. Indigo Girls stepped in for that date.
Tickets for Saturday’s concert sold out months ago and Gomez said earlier this month that he suspected many people in Saturday’s audience would be folks who had never been to a TSO concert.
Saturday’s concert fell on the orchestra’s 95th birthday.
