Yucatán Symphony Launches Season with New Music Director

The Yucatán Symphony Orchestra kicks off its 45th season this month with an ambitious lineup celebrating composers from multiple eras and continents.

Alfonso Scarano, who began late last year as the orchestra’s music director, heads a six-month program that runs through June. The season opens Jan. 23 and 25 with a Chopin gala featuring Chinese pianist Hao Rao performing both of the Polish composer’s piano concertos.

“The goal is to create optimal conditions for direct contact between the audience and the highest quality music,” Scarano said at the season announcement. He praised the orchestra members’ discipline and dedication to their craft.

The season includes 12 concert programs with guest artists from Mexico, Singapore, China and Italy. Performances take place at the Palacio de la Música, where the symphony has performed since a 2022 fire damaged its longtime home at the Teatro José Peón Contreras.

Scarano has introduced a concept he calls “the art of transcription” to the season. The approach presents audiences with both an original composition and its orchestral arrangement in the same concert. Program 2, for example, features Brahms’ Clarinet Sonata No. 1 in both its original form and Luciano Berio’s adaptation.

The season honors several anniversary milestones. The orchestra will perform Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s “Stabat Mater” 290 years after the Italian composer’s death. Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto appears 90 years after its premiere. Yucatecan composers Daniel Ayala and Fausto Pinelo Río receive recognition for the 120th anniversary of Ayala’s birth and 60 years since Pinelo Río’s death.

Program highlights include Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7, Richard Wagner excerpts from “Parsifal,” and a semi-staged presentation of Francis Poulenc’s opera “The Human Voice” featuring Singaporean soprano Victoria Songwei Li.

Italian violinist Valerio Scarano performs Berg’s violin concerto in Program 5. The season also includes “A Night of Zarzuela” with Mexican tenor Ricardo Calderón and Italian soprano Gloria Giurgola’s operatic gala featuring arias from Verdi, Puccini and Bellini.

The orchestra dedicates Program 7 to Ayala with his Maya legend-inspired suite “The Diabolical Grotto.” Program 8 targets younger audiences with “Tubby the Tuba” and includes Mexican conductor Laura Reyes and narrator Andrea Herrera López.

Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” appears in Program 9 in both its piano original and Maurice Ravel’s orchestral arrangement. The season closes with Pinelo Río’s choreographic poem “Ballet Palenque” and Mendelssohn’s Double Concerto for Violin, Piano and Orchestra.

Concerts take place Fridays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at noon. Tickets are available at the Palacio de la Música box office and online at the orchestra’s website. Season subscriptions remain available.

The Yucatán Symphony Orchestra was founded in 2004 through a partnership between the state government and private supporters. It typically performs more than 50 concerts annually across two seasons.