Review: Sphinx Virtuosi performs hypnotic and exhilarating works with the Minnesota Orchestra

After the murder of George Floyd, just about every major American classical music presenter promised that composers of color would be more prominently programmed.

For the Minnesota Orchestra, this weekend’s concerts might be its best effort yet. Not only are all six works by Black or Latin American composers, but the orchestra’s musicians are sharing the stage with the Sphinx Virtuosi, a chamber orchestra made up of Black and Latinx string players. On the podium is a Hispanic conductor, the Phoenix Symphony’s Tito Muñoz.

Which all made Thursday’s midday concert feel like a triumph for cultural curiosity. Rather than offer audiences the comfort of the familiar, this was an exploration of (mostly) new territory, even though two of the pieces originally premiered in the first half of the 20th century. It proved a refreshing mix of voices and moods, the two orchestras blending admirably for works both hypnotic and exhilarating.

Michael Abels is best known for his film work and for sharing with Rhiannon Giddens the most recent Pulitzer Prize for Music (for their opera, “Omar”). For these concerts, the Minnesota Orchestra and Sphinx Virtuosi team up for his 1991 work, “Global Warming.” It’s something of a pastiche of various folk styles that was at its most affecting during a fleet and furious tête-à-tête between cellist Anthony Ross and violinist Erin Keefe.

When the 18 musicians of the Sphinx Virtuosi took the stage alone, it was for Angélica Negrón’s fascinating “Marejada.” Commissioned during the pandemic by the foremost champions of the new among string quartets, the Kronos Quartet, it’s a hypnotic piece of ambient classical set atop a soundtrack of tropical waves and birds.

Less successful were two of tango master Astor Piazzolla’s “Four Seasons of Buenos Aires.” While I love Piazzolla, the piece has become overly ubiquitous in local concert halls, and Thursday’s performance didn’t stand up well beside the several I’ve experienced. Soloist Njioma Chinyere Grevious and the combined forces of the two orchestras felt too careful with a work best lent fiery abandon.

Far more involving was “Breathe,” a piece by Carlos Simon, best remembered for last year’s Minnesota Orchestra commission and premiere of his “brea(d)th,” one of the Twin Cities’ most memorable classical events of 2023. True to its title, “Breathe” evokes long, slow inhales and exhales as it invites listeners to a place of peaceful contemplation via rich orchestral timbres.

While I’m all for exposing audiences to the music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a Black composer of early 20th-century England, the performance of his Symphonic Variations on an African Air didn’t make a strong case for his music being particularly distinctive from that of his mentor and champion, Edward Elgar.

But the concert came to a thrilling conclusion with Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas’ adrenalin-charged 1938 work, “Sensemayá,” during which I found the fire I’d been seeking in the Piazzolla, especially when Steven Campbell’s tuba sang out above a menacing undertow. An encore of a newer Mexican piece, Arturo Márquez’s “Conga del Fuego Nuevo,” featured some fine solos from trumpeter Manny Laureano and a hip-swiveling spirit that sent the audience dancing toward the doors.

Minnesota Orchestra

With: The Sphinx Virtuosi, conductor Tito Muñoz and violinist Njioma Chinyere Grevious.

What: Works by Michael Abels, Angélica Negrón, Astor Piazzolla, Carlos Simon, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Silvestre Revueltas.

When: 8 p.m. Fri., 7 p.m. Sat.

Where: Orchestra Hall, 1111 Nicollet Mall, Mpls.

Tickets: $31-$89, 612-371-5656 or minnesotaorchestra.org.

Rob Hubbard is a Twin Cities classical music writer. Reach him at wordhub@yahoo.com.