S.D. Orchestra to Perform at Mayan Ruins

To mark the Columbus quincentennial, the San Diego Symphony will play an outdoor concert in the shadow of Mexico’s Chichen Itza pyramid Oct. 12.

Music director Yoav Talmi will conduct the orchestra in the ball court of the Yucatan’s most significant architectural remains from the ancient Mayan and Toltec civilizations. This is the group’s first concert outside the San Diego area.

The symphony’s executive director, Wesley Brustad, announced the concert Tuesday morning at Copley Symphony Hall, flanked by Teresa Borge Manzur, director general of cultural services for the state of Yucatan, and Carlos Millet, a businessman from Merida, Yucatan, and an arts supporter.

“We are most eager to present this up-to-date concert in these historic ruins,” Manzur said, “now that charters are bringing tourists from San Diego to Cancun and other parts of the Yucatan.”

The single-concert tour will cost $250,000, all of which has been underwritten by sponsors, including the state of Yucatan, Mexico City’s Televisa broadcasting company, Mexico’s Taresa airlines and the San Diego law firm of Gray Cary Ames & Frye.

The event, which was Brustad’s idea, was quickly organized over the past two months.

“In March, I was snooping around Mexico City for contacts, and I was directed to Carlos (Millet.) The theater in Merida, a 600-seat opera house, was not adequate, but he suggested the Mayan ruins,” Brustad said.

Televisa will broadcast the concert live at 6 p.m. Pacific daylight time, and about 6,500 will be able to hear the concert at Chichen Itza. The ruins have no concert amphitheater, but Brustad said a stage will be built and seating erected. Manzur added that the acoustics of the ball court, used for Mayan sports contests with religious significance, are being studied by Mexican engineers in preparation for the concert.

The orchestra’s program includes works by both U.S. and Mexican composers: Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” Barber’s Adagio for Strings and Silvestre Revueltas’ “La Noche de los Mayas.” Stravinsky’s “Firebird” Suite, Verdi’s Overture to “The Sicilian Vespers” and two dances from De Falla’s “The Three-Cornered Hat” are also on the program. The symphony’s 82 musicians will be joined by nine percussionists from Mexico City for the Revueltas work.

No direct connection links the Yucatan and Columbus’ 1492 voyage, but press counselor Miguel Escobar Valdez of the Mexican Consulate in San Diego noted, “Culture is the greatest link between countries.”