Maria Brea is one of Venezuela’s most acclaimed opera singers

As a youngster,  Maria Brea  learned folk music from her Cuatro-playing father. Today, the soprano is fast making a name for herself across North America. Carnegie Hall, The Metropolitan Opera, Palais Garnier are just some of the prestigious stages the Juilliard grad has already graced, where she has stunned audiences with her dazzling range and intoxicatingly lush tones.


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Maria makes her Winnipeg debut under the baton of  Anne Manson,  singing vocal works by Alexandre Regnault and Odaline de la Martinez’s Four AfroCuban Poems. Martinez’s infectious work has its origins in conversations between friends Nicolas Guillen and Langston Hughes. How we would like to have been a fly on the wall for those talks. Guillen is considered Cuba’s national poet, and Hughes one of the Harlem Renaissance’s — and America’s — greatest poets. While visiting Guillen in Cuba, Hughes remarked on the similarities between Cuban ‘son’ music and American ‘blues’ music. This inspired Guillen’s Motivos de son, which draws on Afro-Cubans’ everyday speech, living conditions, and folk music. It’s almost surprising that someone hasn’t already set this masterpiece of poetry to music, as Martinez does in her irresistible Four AfroCuban Poems

Let’s be honest, MCO audiences wouldn’t be fully satisfied without a dash of Mozart or Haydn — at this concert we generously give you both. 

7.30pm, Wednesday, 27 March 2024
CA$37.00

The concert begins at 7.30pm on Wednesday, March 27th, in Crescent Arts Centre, 525 Wardlaw Avenue. Casual tickets will be available 7 July 2023 here and on MCO’s Ticketline at 204-783-7377.

Manitoba Chamber Orchestra
Anne Manson, Music Director
Karl Stobbe, Concertmaster
Crescent Arts Centre, 525 Wardlaw Avenue
7.30pm, Wednesday, 27 March 2024

Anne Manson, conductor
Maria Brea, soprano

Odaline de la Martinez (b. 1949)
Four Afro Cuban Poems

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Symphony No. 67 in F Major

Alexandre Regnault (b. 1981)
Symphonic Allegory for Soprano

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Symphony No. 25 in G Minor, K. 183

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