Fiesta is devoted to Latino concert music and presents artistically significant compositions from Latin America, Spain and Portugal to listeners. The creative force behind this series is Elbio Barilari, an acclaimed composer, musician, performer and professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The Uruguayan-born Barilari says, "Fiesta features the hottest Latin-American music from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries."
Argentine Composer, Alberto Williams: Born in Buenos Aires in 1862, Alberto Williams was the first Argentine composer to reach international fame. Fiesta presents selections from his symphonic and piano works.
Romantic Latin America: Fiesta features two romantic Latin-American masterpieces from Argentina and Brazil: Constantino Gaito’s String Quartet No.1, and Francisco Mignone’s Piano Concerto.
Imaginary Concert: This week Fiesta reflects an imaginary concert hall with a program that features an overture by Brazilian composer Jose Maurício Nunes Garcia, a piece for oboe and strings by Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla, and Symphony No. 2 by Chilean composer Juan Orrego-Salas.