Santa Fe Symphony showcases music by groundbreaking Latin American composers

From a film noir tango to a diabolical conga to a gaucho-inspired mass, the Santa Fe Symphony presents “Music of Latin America,” an afternoon of spirited symphonic pieces by great Latin American composers, featuring two internationally renowned guest soloists, Miguel del Águila and JP Jofre.

Conducting the orchestra is its longtime music director, Guillermo Figueroa, who has performed to critical acclaim at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, among numerous international venues. He is joined by choral director Carmen Flórez-Mansi, who has conducted choruses at Carnegie Hall and sung for Pope Francis at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Guest soloist del Águila, a three-time Grammy nominee, will play the piano on his popular “Conga,” which he composed in 1994. Conga music is closely related to tango music, which both derive from the ancient musical traditions of the Kongo people of Central Africa. Conga has had an outsized influence on generations of Cuban music and pan-Caribbean Carnival music, as well as inspiring the conga-line dance craze that swept the United States in the 1940s and ’50s.

Santa Fe Symphony showcases music by groundbreaking Latin American composers

Del Águila’s original title, “Conga-Line in Hell,” came from a phantasmagoric dream he had of “an endless line of dead people dancing through the fire of hell.” A “Classics Today” review called the composition a “sly conga that layers Latin American dance rhythms over a repeating piano figure (think Philip Glass, but with a sense of humor).”

The other celebrated guest soloist, Jofre, will perform Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla’s “Concerto for Bandoneón,” also known as “Aconcagua.” The concerto was given that nickname by Piazzolla’s music publisher, because he considered it the peak of the composer’s career, just as the Aconcagua mountain is the highest peak in the Americas. It is written for the bandoneón, an accordion- or concertina-like instrument that’s closely associated with Argentinian tango music.

In an interview with the music magazine “Fifteen Questions,” Jofre singled out Piazzolla as “the one composer above all others who made me rethink everything and was hugely influential in my deciding what I wanted to do in life.”

As a teenager in San Juan, Argentina, Jofre drummed in a heavy metal band before turning to classical music, and he still brings a fierce, percussive energy to his bandoneón performances. Brian Schuth of “The Boston Musical Intelligencer” wrote that Jofre plays “with immense personality and confidence.”

“Aconcagua” takes the form of a classical concerto in three movements, and its concluding “Presto” movement incorporates elements of a high-intensity tango that Piazzolla wrote for the 1970 Argentinian film “Con alma y vida” (“With Life and Soul”), a neo-noir film full of car chases and shootouts. It’s an ideal piece to show off Jofre’s virtuosic and passionate playing.

The Santa Fe Symphony’s afternoon of Latin American music also includes Roberto Sierra’s Symphony No. 3, “La Salsa,” and Ariel Ramírez’s “Misa Criolla (Creole Mass).” Sierra, a Puerto Rican composer, combines classical European musical structures with Afro-Caribbean rhythms, while Argentinian composer Ramírez reinterprets the five sections of the Catholic mass through the folk music idioms of gauchos, Creoles and Indigenous Argentinians.

“Music of Latin America” takes concert-goers on a wide-ranging musical odyssey across Latin America and the Caribbean, with performances by celebrated local and international musicians that are sure to inspire awe.

Ticket holders are invited to attend a free preview talk beginning at 3 p.m.