Latin American Harp

Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra
Ana Maria Patiño-Osorio – conductor
Xavier de Maistre – harp  

Manuel de Falla: The Three-Cornered Hat, Suite No. 2 (12′)
Alberto Ginastera: Harp Concerto (23′)
Darius Milhaud: Le Bœuf sur le toit, Op. 58 (15′)
Ottorino Respighi: Pines of Rome (23′)

Music must have the rhythm of the land from which it grows.Alberto Ginastera

Temperament, colour and rhythm – this evening with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra offers a musical journey between Europe and Latin America. The programme brings together dance rhythms, the virtuosity of the harp and orchestral imagination inspired by the landscapes and cultures of different parts of the world. The music pulses with Spanish and Latin American rhythms and vivid modern orchestral colour.

The concert opens with Suite No. 2 from Manuel de Falla’s ballet The Three-Cornered Hat, a captivating score full of Spanish temperament and dance-like lightness. It is followed by Alberto Ginastera’s Harp Concerto, one of the most distinctive works in the 20th-century harp repertoire. The second half features Darius Milhaud’s playful cinéma-fantaisie on Brazilian melodies, Le Bœuf sur le toit, and the evening concludes with Ottorino Respighi’s magnificent symphonic fresco Pines of Rome, a musical portrait of the Eternal City.

This colourful programme will be conducted by the Colombian conductor Ana Maria Patiño-Osorio, who is emerging as a striking figure of the younger generation of conductors. The soloist of the evening will be the internationally acclaimed harpist Xavier de Maistre, a long-time solo harpist of the Vienna Philharmonic and one of the leading interpreters of his instrument today.

Dates