Kalamazoo Symphony to Premiere First Symphony Written by Chilean Composer

On March 4, Michigan's Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra (KSO) will present a program that contains the North American premiere of the first symphony ever written by a Chilean composer. Enrique Soro composed his "Sinfonia Romántica" in 1921 as a wedding present for his bride and conducted the work's premiere in Santiago that same year. 

While the work also received performances in Berlin and Madrid, it has never received an outing in North America and has not entered the symphonic canon. KSO Music Director Julian Kuerti has spent the last few years researching Soro's life, with the help of the composer's grandson Roberto Doniez Soro. As a result, Kuerti produced a new critical edition from the work's original 323-page manuscript. The KSO will perform "Sinfonia Romántica" in a program alongside Dvořák’s overture "My Country" and Copland's work "Old American Songs."

"I spent years reading and rereading the original materials–copies of manuscripts of Soro’s score, parts used in the early renderings, sketches, and alternate versions," Kuerti said.

"Through careful study and research, we identified and eradicated hundreds of small mistakes that had slipped into existing material. We corrected wrong notes, errors in the dynamics, and in some cases restored passages to instruments that had been changed or omitted."

"The symphony is written in a great romantic tradition," Kuerti continues. "Soro had a wonderful gift for melody, harmonic invention, and orchestration."

The concert will take place on March 4, 2022; tickets are available here.

Chilean composer Enrique Soro started his musical studies in his home city of Concepción and went on to receive a scholarship at the Royal Conservatory in Milan. He returned to Chile in 1905, and a year later was appointed to the composition faculty of the National Conservatory of Music. From 1919 to 1928, he served as the Conservatory’s director. Eventually, he was put in charge of Chile's music education in the country's elementary schools and won the National Prize of Art of Chile in 1948. As a composer, he wrote for solo piano, voice, string ensembles, violin, and symphonic orchestras.