Márquez’s Fandango & Shostakovich’s Fifth

Winner of the 2024 Latin Grammy for Best Classical Contemporary Composition, Fandango is a love letter to the Spanish dance and its New World progeny written for violinist Anne Akiko Meyers. “The Concerto itself is a rainforest of impossible challenges. Yet Anne Akiko Meyers, for whom the work was written, soared through this jungle, her 1741 Guarneri del Gesù violin jumping, bouncing, playing the frequent high registers with operatic facility” (ConcertoNet.com). Márquez’s irresistible Danzón No. 2 kicks things off on a lively note. The evening culminates in Shostakovich’s grand Symphony No. 5, his most popular work. Written when the composer was at his most desperate, this powerful statement, filled with driving rhythms and overarching bombast, helped Shostakovich climb back into the good graces of the Soviet government after the disastrous reception of his opera, Lady Macbeth of Mtensk District.