Gustavo Dudamel and the SBYOV visited Mérida city on the second leg of their national tour. 20,000 people attended the concert held at the Metropolitan Stadium last Tuesday, December 15, at 8:30 p.m. local time.

It was not necessary to wait for the weekend or a day off.  People from the moors and hills of Mérida went to the capital city of the state to attend the concert by El Sistema’s musicians.

Just as it happened in Lara, the concert was opened by the local youth orchestra conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.  The Youth Orchestra of Mérida, made up of children and young people of different ages, played the final movement of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, Eduardo Serrano’s Barlovento and a medley of traditional songs from Mérida, arranged by the artistic director of the Youth Orchestra of Mérida, Jesús Pérez.

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Concierto Gira Nacional de la SJVSB. Mérida, martes 15-12-2009. Fotos: Fesnojiv.

Then, the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela came on stage and warmed up the place.  The orchestra played Wagner’s Rienzi Overture, Tchaikovsky’s Francesca da Rimini, and Dvorak’s Cello Concerto, with soloist Alisa Weilerstein, followed by Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. By the end of this work, there was a firework show that  charged the atmosphere with excitement and made the audience cheer and aplaud.  A few minutes later, the orchestra played Pérez Prado’s Mambo and made everybody in the audience move to the rhythm of the music.

To everyone’s surprise, the concert did not close with the performance of Alma Llanera. Bernstein’s Mambo was played as an encore and, as usual, everyone was infected by the musicians’ cheerfulness.