Special to The Washington Post, May 3, 2003  

For its inaugural concert, the Post-Classical Ensemble could not leave well enough alone. When it came to performing the music of the obscure, early-20th-century Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas at Lisner Auditorium on Thursday evening, a sparkling reading by the chamber orchestra of this subtly crafted music just would not do. No, this group had to go after its audience with a relentless zeal, hurling a dazzling array of information about the music and its composer.

This included not just traditional program notes but also lectures, poetry, movies and popular song—all in a burst of three hours. Even the date — May Day — was selected to add meaning to the music of a composer fired by the idea of socialist revolution. The evening was clearly the brainchild of the ensemble's artistic adviser, Joseph Horowitz, a prolific writer and former director of the forward-leaning Brooklyn Philharmonic, who has made a career of these intense, multimedia festivals. If this evening was any indication, Horowitz's group is a welcome, edgy addition to the musical life of Washington .

The centerpiece of the performance was a screening of the film "Redes," which coincided with Filmfest DC . Under the skillful Spanish conductor Angel Gil-Ordoñez , the Post-Classical Ensemble performed Revueltas's score in live accompaniment to this hour-long 1936 film about village fishermen struggling against the power of a monopoly. The orchestra gave a wonderfully lucid account of the score. The phrasing, dynamics and general sound were alive to the evolving sense of desperation, anger and empowerment expressed in the film.

Revueltas's dirge-like music for the scene in which the hero must bury his son who died after the local overlord refused to pay for medical treatment was heart-rending yet strong. Passages for woodwind, low strings and brass were carefully grafted but not overwrought. Gil-Ordoñez kept everything moving apace and always synced with the images on-screen.

To build up to the tempestuous mood of the film, the concert began with a subtle weaving of popular folk songs from the Mexican Revolution and the composer's pieces for smaller ensembles. Any skepticism of this merger of popular and art music vanished with the soulful singing of Lila Downs, who appeared in and sang on the soundtrack of "Frida," the recent film about Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

About the film / program note