After over a year and a half of not being able to perform, Yucatán’s Luis Fernando Luna Guarneros youth band prepares to return to the stage.
The band plans to hold six concerts between September and November in Mérida’s Palacio de la Música.
“Music means so much to me. It has helped me develop not just as an artist but as a person. I have missed the stage so much and just can’t wait to be back,” said symphony member Ricardo Suárez.
The symphony, named after the former director of Yucatáns OSY state symphony, Luis Fernando Luna Guarneros, is led by the Bulgarian conductor Todor Kostadinov Ivanov.
The company is made up of 39 musicians, mostly young performers from the Yucatán Peninsula.
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The youth band return comes as the state government has announced that new funds will be made available to continue to promote and develop the arts in Yucatán.
“We are extremely proud of our state’s artists and will continue to support them,” said Yucatán’s secretary for culture, Loreto Villanueva Trujillo.
But critics of the government complain that these sorts of remarks ring hollow given the news that Yucatán’s museum of modern art, MACAY, recently announced its closure due to a lack of funding.
“The state signed a commitment to fund the MACAY back in 1993, but the government is no longer keeping up their end, so we are left with little choice,” said the MACAY’s director, Rafel Pérez.
