Page 18 - Phil 2024-2025 opening night digital program

Tonight’s program is a colorful sonic exploration of the Americas, with a very strong
representation from our part of the world. It features music by Florence Price and her
New England Conservatory composition teacher, George Chadwick, a sultry tango from
Argentina, and a fiery Cuban carnival dance by a living Mexican composer. We wrap up the
evening with the familiar ‘honk-honk-honk’ of taxi horns in George Gershwin’s exciting and
evocative An American in Paris. Buckle up! It’s a whirlwind trip of fantasy without leaving
your seat. Enjoy!
— Steven Karidoyanes
Conga del Fuego Nuevo Arturo Márquez
(New Fire Conga) b. 1950
Conga del Fuego Nuevo is an orchestral work depicting a Cuban carnival dance.
Composed in 2005, its colorful orchestration features Latin American percussion
instruments (especially bongos, conga drum and guiro).

Traditional congas have their roots in Cuban music, and the word refers to both specific
carnival music, and the small group within comparsas ensembles that play congas
in barrios and festive parades. Traditional instrumentation differs between congas
santiagueras (usually featuring a small cornet, brakes struck with metal sticks, and
bocúes, derived from African tapered ashiko drums) and congas habaneras (requiring
trumpets, trombones and saxophones, redoblantes and bombos (side and bass drums)
and metal sounds from cowbells, spoons, and skillets. The conga drum, also known in
Cuba as tumbadora, took its name from the music played by comparsas.
Márquez’s music starts in D minor, with a catchy Afro-Cuban 3-3-2 rhythm in the bass.
An exciting moto perpetuo strings passage leads into a triumphant, joyful parade song.
In much of the piece, the strings and winds take turns playing and interacting with each
other. Occasionally, modern mariachi-flavored trumpets shine through, connecting
our present to the pre-Columbian Aztec ritual known as the “new fire” ceremony. Early
modern Mexican composer Carlos Chávez also composed an El fuego nuevo ballet.
The playful moto perpetuo conga line (think 1, 2, 3, kick!) from the opening returns in an
epic climax, before a crucial moment of calm. The “new fire” ceremony required all fires
to be extinguished, before new ones could be started, symbolizing the starting of a new
world. Initially in D major, the theme modulates a few times, and then sputters out.
Finally, the opening bursts back to life in a new key, renewing the world.

Arturo Márquez is a Fulbright scholar with an MFA in composition from CalArts. A
resident of Mexico City, he studied with famous musicians such as Federico Ibarra,
Hector Quintanar, and Joaquín Gutierrez Heras. Márquez is the first musician to receive
“La Medalla De Oro De Bellas Artes de Mexico” (Gold Medal of Fine Arts of Mexico), one
of Mexico’s most coveted awards for career accomplishments in the fine arts. He has
recently been lauded as one of the leading contemporary Latin American composers,
following the Simon Bolívar Youth Orchestra’s 2007 tour of the United States: Gustavo
Dudamel led his colorful Danzón No. 2, and his Danzones (based on traditional music
from the Veracruz region) has been widely choreographed.
— Program note by Zongshu Wu
16 Plymouth Philharmonic O r ches tr a
16 Plymouth Philharmonic Orchestra