The Brazilian NEOJIBA Orchestra will be led by its founder and Principal Conductor Ricardo Castro. The artists will present effervescent pieces by South American composers such as Antônio Carlos Gomes and Alberto Ginastera, as well as masterpieces by 20th-century composers from the United States – Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland. The whole will be complemented by the famous Violin Concerto in D minor op. 47 by Jean Sibelius, which will be performed by one of the most promising violinists of the young generation – the twenty-year-old Guido Sant’Anna, winner of the Fritz Kreisler International Competition.

The concert will begin with Alvorada from one of the most famous Brazilian operas – Lo Schiavo [The Slave] by Antônio Carlos Gomes, an artist born in Campinas, in the eastern part of São Paulo state. He composed in the times of Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini  and honed his skills in Milan. He went down in history as a prominent composer of the golden age of opera. The Slave is a drama in four acts, based on the historical movement to abolish slavery in the 16th-century Brazil. The intermezzo from the last act, imbued with a romantic spirit, is in fact a musical impression describing a sunrise in one of the local forests. This passage is considered essential in the context of Gomes’ orchestral work. It will precede Jean Sibelius’ Violin Concerto in D minor op. 47, which is also one of the most important solo concertos of the 20th century. Atmospheric and full of lyricism, the piece delights with references to folklore and an impressive soloist’s part, characterised by numerous technical difficulties. This time, the concert score will be performed by violinist Guido Sant’Anna, born in 2005.

The second part of the concert will be filled with works by Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland – artists who have made an enormous contribution to the history of American culture. Bernstein’s West Side Story is a musical loosely based on the motifs of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and its plot takes place in the 1950s on the bustling streets of New York. Bernstein, composing the music, demonstrated an extraordinary skill in masterfully using the richness of sound colours to convey the emotions and experiences of the characters. We will hear Symphonic Dances from this musical. It will be preceded by Aaron Copland’s El Salón Mexicó, a work that is a musical recollection of his trip to Mexico. Its title refers to the vibrant club that the artist visited in 1932. Copland wove authentic Mexican songs into the one-movement composition, seeking to capture the atmosphere there as best he could. “In that hot place, one felt a very natural and uninhibited closeness to the Mexicans. It was not the music I heard, but the spirit I felt there that attracted me, and I hope I have expressed that in my music,” the composer said. The work of Alberto Ginastera, who came from Argentina, also contains elements of folklore, as is evident in his suite Estancia, composed in 1942. Commissioned by the American Ballet Caravan, the piece was intended to be “a ballet in one act and five scenes, based on Argentine rural life.” The structure of the work is based on the Argentine national epic Martín Fierro by José Hernández, in which the author presents the fate of the eponymous gaucho.