REVIEW: Salvador leads TSO, mariachis to stirring evening
Tucson Citizen
April 24, 2002
I wish the members of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra had stuck around through the end of last night's Mariachi-Symphony concert.Mind you, they weren't obligated. They were needed for the first half of the program with Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán and Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano, and union rules no doubt dictated that the two-hour-long first half (!) was as much as they could perform. But had they stayed, they'd have gotten insights into one of the greatest works of classical Mexican literature - Moncayo's "Huapango."Based on the Mexican sones - the roots music of the mariachi - the orchestral score captures the grandeur and pride of the culture from which it springs. Before closing the evening with "Son De La Negra," the traditional capstone piece for virtually every mariachi conference, the combined Vargas and Camperos players rendered a stirring and soulful arrangement of the Moncayo classic, translating it back to its roots with elan.For the second time in the 20-year history of the Bank One Tucson International Mariachi Conference, top-flight mariachis teamed up with TSO. With Maestro Guillermo Salvador, director of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Jalisco, on the podium, the sometimes awkward fit of mariachi and orchestra was transcended in a collaboration of stylistic continuity. Salvador deserves much of the credit. His succinct conducting style conveyed the complex nuances of the music's multiple tiers of rhythmic activity, as well as its nostalgia and romance. And he was not above busting a move to make the music dance. TSO needs to snare this guy as a guest conductor SOON!The symphonic arrangements for the two mariachis varied broadly. Los Camperos' charts contrasted sophisticated, Hollywood-esque symphonic sections with the mariachi's more traditional fare, insightfully framing the mariachi tradition's Mexican film roots. While equally sophisticated, Vargas' symphonic scores went for more seamless interplay between the mariachi and the orchestra.Both groups are crack ensembles of virtuosic players, with stables of vocal artists to rival an opera house's. But the Vargas singers were superior, whether punching out in bold crowd rousers or tugging the heartstrings in emotional rancheras. Vargas' showmanship and comic choreography left a lasting impression. Still, Los Camperos rightly earned the crowd's affection too, and was bested only by El Mejor Mariachi del Mundo (The best mariachi in the world).The evening's highlight was Vargas' stirring, rhythmically lasar-guided account of longtime Vargas arranger Ruben Fuentes' "Violin Huapango," a work that aptly drew the first full-audience standing ovation of the evening.Salvador expertly led TSO in two solo orchestral works as well. Contemporary Mexican composer Arturo Marquez' episodic "Danzon No. 2," which opened the program, got off to a slightly unsure start but was quickly put back in the groove by Salvador. who played up all of its shifting moods and rhythms to perfection. His reading of Russian romantic Mikhail Glinka's "Russlan and Ludmilla" overture was confident and zesty.There could have been more people there, but with 80 percent of the floor seating selling for $76 a pop, the three-quarters-full house at the Tucson Convention Center Music Hall was respectable. The conference wisely gave some of the seats to student mariachis, and it was fitting to see the current crop of the group that started the mariachi movement in America - Tucson's Los Changuitos Feos - in full force among the crowd. And it was likewise great to see so many Hispanics at an orchestral concert and symphony fans at a mariachi performance. In my view, this was a solid investment for both parties.