RECOMMENDED
“Sagrado y Profano” (“Sacred and Profane”) is the final program in the Grant Park Music Festival’s 2006 Pan American Music Series and is centered around a rare performance of Venezuelan composer Antonio Estevez’s “Cantata Criolla, Florentino, The One Who Sang with the Devil,” a setting of the poem by the same name by Venezuelan writer, educator and statesman Alberto Arvelo Torrealba, which is based on the legend of a singing contest between a plainsman—sung by tenor Ulises Solano—and the Devil—sung by baritone Nelson Martines—with the Grant Park Chorus used to narrate and comment upon the unfolding drama in the style of a Greek tragedy but spiced up with plenty of traditional Latin American instruments and rhythms. Filling out the program are Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Choros No. 10 and Ariel Ramirez’ “Misa Criolla,” all conducted by Carlos Kalmar. (Dennis Polkow)
August 12 at Pritzker Pavilion.
