Spanish-American conductor François López-Ferrer will make his Tucson Symphony Orchestra debut this weekend, leading a program of Latin works anchored by Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4.
We get López-Ferrer as his star is on the rise following his last-minute, critically acclaimed American premiere in 2021 of Mark Simpson’s Violin Concerto with violinist Nicola Benedetti and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
The 2021-22 Los Angeles Philharmonic Dudamel Fellow has since led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, LA Phil and a handful of smaller American orchestras including Rochester and Pasadena, as well as a number of international ensembles.
López-Ferrer, the resident conductor of the Académie of the Opéra de Paris, joins the TSO for a Masterworks concert that is part of TSO Music Director José Luis Gomez’s ¡Celebración Latina! initiative. The program opens with Spanish composer Manuel de Falla’s vibrant “The Three-Cornered Hat” Suite No. 1 followed by Argentinian composer Ginatera’s 12-part “Variaciones concertantes.”
The concert ends with Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony, the kinder-gentler of the German composer’s symphonies. More genial in tone, it’s often overshadowed by Beethoven’s weightier Fifth and Third “Eroica” symphonies.
The orchestra will perform the concert three times — at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 9, and 2 p.m. Sunday, March 10, at Catalina Foothills High School, 4300 E. Sunrise Drive. Tickets are $40-$88 through tucsonsymphony.org.
Tucson Desert Song Festival part deux
The 2024 Tucson Desert Song Festival, which opened its spring leg last week with Arizona Theatre Company‘s production of “Master Class,” is hosting two events this week:
Mark Morris Dance Group brings “The Look of Love” to Centennial Hall with vocalist Marcy Harriell as part of the Tucson Desert Song Festival.
Broadway actress/vocalist Marcy Harriell joins the Mark Morris Dance Group for “The Look of Love — Songs of Burt Bacharach” on Tuesday, March 12. The dance troupe collaborates again with arranger Ethan Iverson (Beatles tribute “Pepperland”) for what they describe as a heartfelt homage to Bacharach, one of the most influential and enduring songwriters of the 20th century who died last February.
Harriell, whose Broadway credits include “Rent” and “In the Heights,” has been doing the show with the dance troupe since 2022 to critical acclaim. The Washington Post said Harriell’s vocals “reach theater-filling force.” The New York Times gushed, “This is choreography that, in the words of the song, says ‘more than just words could ever say.’”
The troupe’s performance, presented by Arizona Arts Live, is at 7:30 p.m. at Centennial Hall, 1020 E. University Blvd., on the University of Arizona campus. Tickets are $39-$69, $10 for students, through arizonaartslive.com.
Tenor Lawrence Brownlee
Lawrence Brownlee, a leading bel canto tenor on opera and concert stages around the country and beyond, brings his critically acclaimed recital “Rising” to Holsclaw Hall at the UA School of Music, 1017 N. Olive Road, off East Speedway and North Park Avenue, on Wednesday, March 13.
Accompanied by pianist Kevin J. Miller, “Rising” celebrates the African-American experience through works Brownlee commissioned from leading African-American composers using the words of Harlem Renaissance poets Alice Dunbar Nelson, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson and others. The songs celebrate the themes of “joy, empowerment, faith, love and strength in the face of challenge,” according to liner notes from his album of the same name.
Arizona Opera is hosting the recital, which begins at 7 p.m. Tickets are $40 through tucsondesertsongfestival.org.
Performers Ana María Martínez, soprano, Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor, the Philharmonia Orchestra and UC Berkeley Chorus & Volti perform "Dreamers." The music is by Jimmy Bellido and lyrics by Nilo Cruz. The composer Jimmy Lopez Bellido and tenor Michael Fabiano are performing the world premiere of “Quiet Poems,” commissioned by the Tucson Desert Song Festival. The texts are from poems written by Nilo Cruz, with whom Lopez collaborated on the opera “Bel Canto” and an oratorio “Dreamers.” Video Courtesy Jimmy Lopez Bellido.
