By Glenda Rice Collins

Bentonville, Ark., USA — Masterfully curated by award-winning Mexican conductor and educator Felipe Tristán to evoke themes from Diego Rivera’s “quintessential nationalist style,” the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas (SoNA), under the baton of SoNA music director Paul Haas, presented the recent, impressive concert collaborative, I Paint What I See, featuring diverse music by six distinguished Mexican composers who represent a contrasting variety of significant styles and evolving themes found in Mexican classical music. Bravo!

The June 30 evening concert took place in the scenic Great Hall of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, where the Diego Rivera’s America exhibition continues through July 31, 2023.

Currently based in New York, Tristán is known for bringing lively musical prowess to the podium. He has worked with orchestras around the world and currently serves as conductor with the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra, Teatro Grattacielo, and at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Division, in New York. He also serves as the Creative Partnerships Manager of the GRAMMY®️ award-winning, Afro Latin Jazz Alliance.

The SoNA concert opened with selections from the Suite for Double Quartet from the ballet La Hija de Colquide (The Daughter of Colchis) by Carlos Chávez. Commissioned for the famed dancer Martha Graham, she gave it the alternative title, Dark Meadow. The introspective IV. Sarabande, was followed by the rather somber depth of emotion in V. Peana, and VI. Postludio, radiant in its reflections from pensive to majestic in spirit.

Felipe Tristán, a native of Monterrey, Mexico currently based in New York, referred to Rivera’s highly controversial mural work, his 1932 Man at the Crossroads (ultimately destroyed for political reasons) in his program notes as an example of Rivera’s “life and oeuvre…surrounded by controversy and turmoil” while emphasizing that the painter and muralist Rivera was “considered to be one of Mexico’s most distinguished artists.”

According to Tristán‘s program notes, politics and protests in support of Rivera evolved during times of turmoil inspiring an ingenious poem by E. B. White published in The New Yorker Magazine edition of May 20, 1933, quoting Rivera with his notorious response “I paint what I see,” which served as the title of the June 30, 2023 Crystal Bridges illustrious SoNA concert, featuring the works of six Mexican composers ranging from Carlos Chavez (1899-1978) and Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940) to Alejandro Basulto (b. 1984) and Gabriela Ortiz (b. 1964), “perhaps Mexico’s greatest living composer.” Her vibrant La Calaca (The Skull) from Altar de Muertos, contrasting life and death, was featured, reflecting “…a musical world of joy, vitality, and a great expressive force.” A pizzicato section for strings is quite frenetic in its own way. As the strings play out with more intensity, the vibrant music could inspire dancing and festivities.

In program notes, Ortiz adds: “Syncretism and the concept of death in Modern Mexico, chaos and the richness of multiple symbols, where the duality of life is always present: sacred and profane, good and evil, night and day, joy and sorrow.”

The Diego Rivera Tribute Concert: I Paint What I See

The composition of the youngest living Mexican composer featured on the program, Alejandro Basulto (b. 1984) and his Pequena Serenata Ranchera, was influenced by pop music and film, manifested in what was recently referred to as a “tutti frutti” style much like Diego Rivera’s contrived murals in Mexico, full of contrasted, colorful and symbolic details — high drama diversity — a dance of life with all its unpredictable complexity… and resilience.

Jose Pablo Moncayo‘s Amatzinac, described as a small gem, evokes the sounds of a river with solo flute and strings; while Basulto’s serenata “refers to giving music as a present, the same way someone gives a bouquet of flowers.” With a dramatic opening in the Baroque style “to wake up the woman,” it progresses to a macho-like “night music” ranchera song.

This SoNA concert program was dedicated to Javier Alvarez (1956-2023) in Memoriam. Alvarez’ Metro Chabacano, reflecting the very busy sounds, patterns and rhythms of a modern day subway station, pulsed with evocative energy.

According to SoNA executive director D. Riley Nicholson, “collaboration (with different artists, arts partners and non-profits) throughout Northwest Arkansas… and the cross-pollination of artistic ideas and audiences, (in new venues) beyond our mainstage, is at the heart of the innovative SoNA Beyond concert series…The mission is to shake up ideas…about what a symphony is (and does). Thanks to Crystal Bridges for being a partner in this. And thanks to guest curator Felipe Tristan (who) connected with the (Rivera) exhibition in a very deep and heartfelt way.”

Coincidentally, SoNA has recently announced the forthcoming departure of Nicholson at the end of July, to take on a new role as executive director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz, California. A national search for his successor has begun.

The SoNA website shows Nicholson to be an arts manager, composer, and pianist with experience working across artistic disciplines with contemporary, experimental and classical music, ballet, contemporary dance, and film nonprofits. With such leadership in recent years, the SoNA organization reports a transformation “in terms of scale, capacity, programmatic diversity, and educational impact.”

Exemplary Leadership at SoNA

Per the SoNA website: “During the past three years, Nicholson, the SoNA Board of Directors, musicians, music director Paul Haas, and staff, have:

• Adopted a new vision, organizational values, diversity, equity and inclusion action plan, and an ambitious three-year strategic plan.

• Expanded programming to include a larger symphonic mainstage season including a non-classical (“pops”) program.

• Launched SoNA Beyond, a community outreach focused concert series that moves beyond the mainstage, collaborating with vital local nonprofit organizations and artists across the region. SoNA Beyond innovates the artform, includes new voices, and immerses SoNA in the community.

• Radically increased educational programming, hiring education director Natalie Fernandez – expanding the SoNA Mentors program and youth performances, now reaching 2,000+ students per year.

• Grown contributed revenue streams by 71% supporting a budget of $1.4 million, the largest budget in the organization’s history.

• Grown staff from one full-time employee to four full-time employees.

• Encouraged a focus on living voices of today, including commissioning new works for both SoNA Beyond and the symphonic mainstage – a first for SoNA.

• Recorded SoNA’s first-ever album, which was set to release June 9, 2023.”

Bravo!

Diego Rivera’s America is co-organized by Crystal Bridges & the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

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