Orquesta Sinfónica de San Luis Potosi / José Miramontes Zapata MANUEL M. PONCE Orchestral Music Vol. 1

The Mexican composer Manuel María Ponce (1882–1948) is best known for a handful of popular songs and guitar pieces, and yet he left a huge legacy of some 500 works – orchestral, chamber and piano music, art songs and folksong arrangements. These works together form the foundation of the Mexican national repertoire, and yet they are as good as unknown.

The works recorded here – some for the first time – reveal a composer with a surefooted command of the orchestra: his early impressionism is infused with echoes of Mexican indigenous culture in textures of unsuspected richness. This release is the first in a Toccata Classics series exploring Mexico’s unknown heritage of classical music.

José Miramontes Zapata graduated from the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire in Leningrad. He has worked as pianist, choir director and cultural manager. In 2000 he founded the Orquesta Sinfónica de San Luis Potosí and as artistic director and principal conductor of the Orchestra he has promoted many choral and orchestral activities with local young musicians, developing a constant cultural growth in San Luis Potosí, with more than 80 concerts per year. The San Luis Potosí Symphony Orchestra occupies an important role in the diffusion of Mexican symphonic music, with concerts in some of the major halls in México, China and Europe.

Orquesta Sinfónica de San Luis Potosí / José Miramontes Zapata JULIÁN CARRILLO

This extraordinary musician was born in the village of Ahualulco, San Luís Potosí, on January 28, 1875, the same year as Ravel, Melartin, Gliere and Max d’Ollone. He began his formal studies at the age of ten in the State Capital and later moved to Mexico City to continue his education in the National Conservatoire (Conservatorio Nacional de Música).
In 1899 the Mexican government awarded a grant to the young musician, then aged 24, to continue his studies in Europe. In Leipzig he entered the Royal Conservatoire where he studied composition with Salomon Jadassohn, violin with Hans Becker and theory with Carl Reinecke, who also taught another great Mexican composer: Ricardo Castro.
The San Luis Potosí Symphony Orchestra achieved great renown in the international perspective under José Miramontes Zapata’s direction. The orchestra has been invited to important events such as the 2003 and 2005 Festival Internazionale della Associazione Mondiale Toscanini, to the Ravello Festival in 2005, both in ItJulián aly, and to the 2005 Musicalta Festival in Alsace, France. That same year, the San Luis Potosí Orchestra became the first Latin American Orchestra to perform at the Grosser Musikvereinssaal in Vienna, Austria, under the direction of José Miramontes Zapata, who became the first Mexican conductor to perform at Vienna’s Great Hall, one of the leading concert halls worldwide.