Prieto: Music of the Americas

A vibrant program of Western Hemisphere composers will take center stage at the New World Center on Miami Beach, conducted by one of today’s foremost interpreters of Latin American music.

Prieto: Music of the Americas is part of the New World Symphony’s 2025–2026 season, with performances on Saturday, November 22 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, November 23 at 2:00 p.m. The concert, led by conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto, features New World Symphony Fellows in a program that explores musical identity and regional character through four distinctive works. The lineup includes Alberto Ginastera’s Variaciones concertantes, Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade (After Plato’s Symposium) with violinist Karen Gomyo, Evencio Castellanos’s Santa Cruz de Pacairigua and Juan Pablo Contreras’s Mariachitlán.

Carlos Miguel Prieto, celebrated for championing Latin American composers and new music, brings his extensive international experience to the podium. He's currently the Music Director of the North Carolina Symphony, with past leadership roles at the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México and the Louisiana Philharmonic. Violinist Karen Gomyo, renowned for her technical brilliance and expressive depth, will perform as soloist in Bernstein’s philosophical and lyrical Serenade.

From Ginastera’s lyrical, virtuosic variations to Contreras’s festive tribute to mariachi traditions, this concert takes listeners on a rich musical journey through the Americas. The evening culminates with Castellanos’s spirited tone poem, inspired by a Venezuelan town’s patron saint celebration.