If you were grumbling about this year’s Proms including no American orchestras, then you currently need to be at the Barbican, where the wonderfully shiny Los Angeles Philharmonic is on tour with its music and artistic director, Gustavo Dudamel. Last night was the first of its two London concerts. As the centrepiece, they brought the UK premiere of a new violin concerto by the Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz, written for and dedicated to its soloist, 21-year-old Maria Dueñas.
A former BBC New Generations Artist , she is, frankly, a stunning, mesmerising firebrand; in command of an inspiring range of colour on her instrument, she was unfazed by the many challenges Ortiz threw into her path. Entitled Altar de cuera (string altar), the concerto is part of Ortiz’s series of “musical altars” and draws inspiration from her own chilanga Mexico City background plus Dueñas’s native Andalucia, but it pulls its weight as pure and fascinating music. Though in the traditional three-movements, its language is highly individual and it is a showpiece for the orchestra as well as the soloist.
In the second movement the woodwind players create eerie atmospheres by rubbing wineglasses, and the finale keeps the percussion on their toes. The soloist seems almost to narrate the action; a sophisticated balance was maintained by composer, conductor and soloist alike. Its rapturous reception suggests that something exciting is happening in new music.
Old music doesn’t get much more fa.