If you’re sick of classical music‘s perennial focus on the work of older (and mostly dead) white males, Santa Fe Pro Musica has the antidote for you in its Spring Orchestra Concerts on Saturday, March 11, and Sunday, March 12.
Of the program’s conductor, soloist, and four composers, only one — Antonín Dvorˇák, with his Serenade for Strings — falls into the usual-suspects realm. Taiwanese American conductor Mei-Ann Chen, music director of the Chicago Sinfonietta, returns to Pro Musica after making her debut here in November 2021.
All four works Chen will conduct are for string orchestra. There’s no sign of any instruments that need to be blown into or whacked with mallets. Composer Jennifer Higdon, winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music, is represented by selections from her Dance Card. Hispanic composer Osvaldo Golijov’s Last Round is one of his most frequently performed works and is also on the Pro Musica program.
A commissioned world premiere — Victory Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra — written and performed by Black composer and double bass virtuoso Xavier Foley, is the concert’s centerpiece. The 28-year-old Foley won first prize as a performer at the 2016 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, as well as at the Sphinx Competition two years earlier. His compositions have been played by the Atlanta and Oregon symphonies and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, among other organizations. On the origin of the title, Foley says, “This is my third commission, and the concerto was me taking what I learned from my previous experience and coming up with something that I think will be very good. It’s a victory to me!”
Victory‘s commission dates from Anne-Marie McDermott’s brief tenure as the group’s artistic director. “Xavier Foley is a brilliant young artist who is forging a very unique and thrilling path as both performer and composer,” she says. “I find his compositional voice to be inventive, exciting, fearless, and very personal. He’s adept at incorporating many different musical styles in combination with a truly American perspective into his works.”
7p.m. Saturday, March 11, and 3 p.m. Sunday, March 12, Lensic Performing Arts Center, 211 W. San Francisco St., $28-$98, 505-988-4640, sfpromusica.org
