Yucatan State Symphony

We arrived in Merida on Jan 18, Wednesday. On Friday night we went to the Symphony.

I didn’t take any pictures of the inside of the symphony hall. It was beautiful—huge chandelier and a lovely mural on the ceiling. We sat on the 2nd floor balcony. The program was “Waltzes of Russia and Vienna”. I was very familiar with most of the pieces except for a Jazz waltz from a suite by Shostakovich. (I planned to save the program so I’d remember details, but I laid it down somewhere after the concert). I’ve never been a real fan of Shostakovich—a bit too contemporary for my taste. But this piece was absolutely charming. Frank leaned over and commented that it sounds like a carousel; and it did. One other piece that I’d heard of but wasn’t very familiar with was Prokofiev’s Cinderella Suite waltz. It was nice, but I loved the Shostakovich.

The conductor of the symphony is Juan Carlos Lomónaco.

Very charming, relatively young, and so talented. His bio in the program notes was extensive. One thing that jumped out at me was that he had guest conducted the Salt Lake Symphony in the past few years.

http://www.saltlakesymphony.org/bio.php?fname=Juan_Carlos&lname=Lomonaco

(I couldn't get it to hyper-link, so you'll just have to copy and paste if you want to read his bio on the Salt Lake Symphony guest artist archive)

Another thing that was of note—he used no music for the entire concert. Watching him was like watching a wonderful dance unfold.

The encore number was the Thunder and Lightning Polka. The audience went wild. They love their symphony and their conductor. It was a wonderful way to spend a Friday evening in lovely Merida.