Tucson, Mexico celebrate cultural unity with annual concert

It will come near the end of the annual Tucson Mexican Independence Day concert when Tucson Consul Fernando Adrián Sánchez Roldán recites the ceremonial El Grito.

El Grito harkens back to the September day in 1810 when Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla rang his church bell in Dolores, Mexico, calling his countrymen to arms against Spain.

El Grito is one of the highlights of Mexican Independence Day celebrations in Mexico and at Mexican consulates around the world. In Tucson, it’s the emotional climax of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra’s annual Mexican Independence Day Concert.

“The reaction is amazing. The energy is incredible,” said TSO Music Director Josè Luis Gomez, who will lead the orchestra in its sixth Mexican Independence Day concert on Tuesday, Sept. 15.

Admission to the concert — a collaboration between the Consulate of Mexico in Tucson, Visit Tucson, the orchestra and Tucson-Mexico Sister Cities — is free, but Gomez guessed that at this point, tickets, distributed by the consulate, are likely in short supply if there are any left.

Tuesday’s concert will feature tenor Carlos Zapién, Mariachi Aztlán de Pueblo High School and Compañía de Danza Folklórica Arizona in a program that opens with Genaro Codina’s “Zacatecas” March, a military march that premiered during Independence Eve celebrations in Mexico in 1892 and became something of a secondary national anthem.

The 90-minute program also includes Armando Manzanero’s “Somos Novios,” José Pablo Moncayo’s famous “Huapango,” Fernando Z. Maldonado’s iconic “Volver, Volver” and Consuelo Velázquez’s anthem “Bésame Mucho.”

Gomez called Tuesday’s concert one of the orchestra’s most significant annual events and one that highlights the cultural ties that bind the borderlands of Southern Arizona and Mexico.

“More than 40% of the population of Southern Arizona is Hispanic or from Hispanic origins, and the Mexican community in the Tucson area is huge,” said Gomez, who is kicking off his 10th TSO season with Tuesday’s concert.

“It's part of our DNA to participate and collaborate with these communities," he said. "I think since we established this relationship with the Consulate of Mexico in Tucson, it became one of the important dates in the calendar for us.”

Tucson’s concert is entirely in Spanish, including from the Venezuelan-born/Spanish-raised Gomez, which connects Tucson with its rich Mexican culture.

“The energy is incredible, and I think that's where one of the reactions that I get because not everybody is Spanish-speaking in the audience,” Gomez said, adding that non-Spanish-speakers have approached him after the concert to say that although they couldn’t understand what he was saying, they understood the message.

“It is one of those cases in which I think the language barrier is broken with music, with the energy, with the excitement,” he said. “That's part of what we do on stage as an orchestra, just breaking those barriers for everybody to understand and everybody to enjoy.”

Tuesday’s concert begins at 7:30 p.m. Email the consulate at comunidadestuc@sre.gob.mx for tickets.