Giving the public the maximum experience in two months, a challenge for the Mining Symphony Orchestra

▲ Prieto during rehearsal for the second program of his 2025 summer season. Photo by Cristina Rodríguez

Angel Vargas

La Jornada Newspaper, Friday, July 11, 2025, p. 2

Carlos Miguel Prieto, director of the Minería Symphony Orchestra (OSM) for 19 years, is fine-tuning the final details with the oboes. "We must prevent them from covering the violins ," he says, marking a sweet melody with his voice.

After three and a half hours, the group concludes the rehearsal of the second program of its 2025 summer season, which will be presented this Saturday and Sunday in the Nezahualcóyotl Hall of the University Cultural Center (Insurgentes Sur 3000, Ciudad Universitaria).

The session was dedicated to preparing Johannes Brahms's Piano and String Quartet in G minor, in the orchestral version by Arnold Schönberg.

This piece is feared for the reasons we've faced , the conductor tells the musicians to close the day's work. Let's make the fearsome enjoyable. I'm the senile one; you, the young ones; at my age, it's always exciting to discover something wonderful by Brahms.

Still on campus, Prieto—who will turn 60 on November 14—talks with La Jornada about this second program and the rest of this summer season, which began on July 5 and will conclude on August 31, with a total of nine programs.

It's a lot of work , he says in reference to the Brahms work, and clarifies that they will dedicate five rehearsals to this second program, the same as to the fifth, which includes Gustav Mahler's third symphony, which is also very difficult, in his words.

This version of the Brahms quartet is rarely performed due to its difficulty. Its final movement is a gypsy rondo, with Hungarian-style music. Brahms, who was North German, loved Hungarian folk music so much that he wrote several Hungarian dances. "That's where the difficulty lies, in the style of how to play it ," he explains.

Schoenberg's version, he adds, transfers the extreme complexity of the piano to the orchestra, taking the musicians out of their comfort zone . The program will also include Antonín Dvorák's Cello Concerto and Zoltán Kodály's Háry Janos Suite , with a cimbalom soloist, a percussion string instrument that is rare in our country.

Such a diverse range of works reflects the spirit that guides this OSM summer season: "The idea is to give the audience the maximum possible experience in nine weeks. There's music from all periods, except the Baroque, because there wasn't enough room. They range from Mozart, which is the oldest, to the present day.

"There's also Brahms, Schumann, and then the later Romantics, like Mahler, and from the 20th-century repertoire, which is essential to me, Ravel and Revueltas. This year, 2025, there's no Shostakovich, because we've done that a lot in previous years, but there's a lot of Beethoven (two of his piano concertos and his 5th and 9th symphonies), who is always important to perform."

Variety is what we want to convey to the audience, because we've done several seasons with very strong threads, which, at the same time, are somewhat pigeonholed. The idea now is for each concert to be incredibly bright, varied, and colorful.

According to the conductor, this orchestra's audience likes to be challenged, not provoked , so they avoid highly intellectualized programming. The goal, he says, is to always maintain a connection with the audience.

We don't have guaranteed audiences, and we're an orchestra without government support. So, perhaps we take fewer risks than other orchestras, as we depend much more on public acceptance. That's why we have to make sure there's something that catches the audience every week.

Prieto emphasizes that throughout this cycle, in addition to national premieres, such as the guitar concerto Místico y profano by Sonoran artist Arturo Márquez, and the first symphony by Juan Pablo Contreras, there will also be performances by prominent soloists.

Among them are guitarist Pablo Sainz, cellist Asier Polo, pianist Jorge Federico Osorio, violinist James Ehnes, and mezzoprano J'Nai Bridges. Special mention should be made of John Adams, one of America's most renowned and performed composers and conductors, who will serve as guest conductor on the eighth program (August 23 and 24), which will feature a performance of his Violin Concerto.

As he prepares to celebrate two decades at the helm of the OSM in 2026, Prieto affirms that he is at the peak of his career: "I've never liked to talk about myself, but I feel I'm in a process of maturing. I've been conducting around 100 concerts a year for 27 years now, and that adds up; it builds experience and hard work."

"I feel like I can give more to the orchestra and the audience now than ever before. Instead of viewing 20 years as a long time, I see them as an opportunity to work at a different level than I did before. I've had the privilege of working with excellent orchestras and soloists.

What experience allows me is to give my country and this great orchestra the best I can; at the same time, I understand that the OSM has its own personality and idiosyncrasies. Today, its sections include great national musicians, many of them young and women. In other words, there's no need to import music composers for lack of quality: quality is there, as is work ethic. That's one of the things that makes the OSM successful: work ethic and dedication to concerts.

The season also includes the family children's program Cri-Cri Sinfónico: Que deje toditos los sueños abiertos (Cri-Cri Symphonic: Let them leave all their dreams open), featuring actor Mario Iván Martínez (July 26, August 9, and 30). Concerts are held on Saturdays and Sundays at 8 p.m. and 12 p.m., respectively. More information is available at www.mineria.org.mx .

▲ Carlos Miguel Prieto has been conducting the Minería Symphony Orchestra for 19 years, and he says he's at the peak of his career: "I've never liked to talk about myself, but I feel like I'm maturing ." Here, during the three-and-a-half-hour rehearsal for the second program of the 2025 summer season. Photo by Cristina Rodríguez

La Jornada Newspaper, Friday, July 11, 2025, p. 3