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."
Two Important Mexican Composers: Silvestre Revueltas was a student of Carlos Chavez and their musical friendship inspired both to reach new musical heights. Fiesta presents compositions by these two great twentieth-century composers.
Hidden Jewels by Camargo Guarnieri: Mozart Camargo Guarnieri was a fellow Brazilian composer with Heitor Villa-Lobos. Like Villa-Lobos, Guarnieri brought the music of Brazil to the concert stage through symphonies, operas, dance music and song. After all, with a name like Mozart what else could one be but a composer?