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."
Brazilian Composer, Paulo Bellinati: Paulo Bellinati, virtuoso guitar player and composer, has dedicated his career to guitar music. Today Fiesta presents selections from his compositions, including his very colorful Concierto Caboclo.
19th Century Orchestral Music from Brazil: Brazilian music includes several brilliant 19th century composers. On this Fiesta we will showcase compositions by Leopoldo Miguez, Carlos Gomez and Alberto Nepomuceno.
Ricardo Castro Mexican, Composer and Pioneer: Ricardo Castro was a late nineteenth-century romantic composer and pianist, who toured and taught from New York to Leipzig. We will feature his piano concerto and cello concerto, the first written in Latin America.