Maestro Lina Gonzalez-Granados conducts a performance. Credit: Todd Rosenberg

The San Antonio Philharmonic will present its Classics VI concerts this Friday and Saturday, showcasing works by Mendelssohn, Mozart and Gabriela Lena Frank, a Grammy Award-winning contemporary U.S. composer of Peruvian and Chinese heritage.

Colombian American guest conductor Lina González-Granados — known both for evoking dynamic performances from musicians and her dedication to highlighting works by Latin American composers — will lead the orchestra both nights. She currently serves as resident conductor of the LA Opera and was named one of Bloomberg Línea’s 100 Influential Latinos of 2022.

The weekend’s program also will feature celebrated violinist Blake Pouliot performing Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major.

Tickets for the performances at downtown’s Scottish Rite Hall are available online.

This will be González-Granados’ second time working with the San Antonio Philharmonic. She also conducted many of the same musicians during a guest shot with the now-defunct San Antonio Symphony.

We caught up with González-Granados by phone to ask her about the weekend’s performances, the importance of including a diverse array of works in concerts and how she balances her busy musical life with raising a toddler.

How have these experiences working with the Philharmonic been?

Well, they’ve been great. So much that I wanted to come back. So, every time they ask me, I am willing to fly from Philly. The people are very nice. The orchestra learns fast, we tackle challenging repertoires. So, it’s always been very, very interesting.

For this particular show, you’re going to be doing work by composers many people are familiar with — Mendelssohn and Mozart — but also less-familiar work by multiracial Latina composer Gabriela Lena Frank. How does it feel to be doing a program that mixes these more familiar works of art with a newer piece audiences may be experiencing for the first time?

Well, one of the things that is very curious about Gabriela and the relationship with the Philharmonic is that this is the second time actually, I’m playing a piece by her with them. My first time I did the piece Escaramuza, and now I’m doing her concerto for orchestra.

So, for once, the orchestra is very familiar with the style of her music. The main thing of the concert, if I may say so, the piece is called Walkabout, which is a whole [trek] from high on the Andes to a city in Peru, like a journey [by the composer]. … But also the Mendelssohn, it’s a trip in itself, the Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, which is a depiction of a trip that was a poem by Goethe. And we are always exploring how new and old pieces make sense together, and the only way to do it is to create a sense of perspective that they are not too far away. Everyone is thinking about the journeys of life. This is what Mendelssohn and Gabriela Frank are doing, and in the middle is the Mozart. So, it’s a fantastic way to mix the two. 

Does it help you as conductor to be able to identify a theme that runs through the music you’re presenting in a program?

Of course, because I mean, not all the time does it work, but at the same time, when you are curating a program and you are picking the pieces, you’re telling a story. So, it’s all about the storytelling. Sometimes the storytelling comes through the key or sometimes it comes through the genre, but in this time it goes deeper than that — it comes to a personal journey, and that’s what it is at this moment.

You were the first Latina conductor of the LA Opera. Can you talk a little bit about how it feels to break that new ground?

I have had the luck of doing a lot of things with orchestras, and orchestras have always — how do I say it? They have always opened doors for me. Opera is a little bit harder just because the opportunities are smaller. So, breaking into that competitive scene is very hard.

And I’m very happy that LA gave me an opportunity, because I would say the catch is that you have to have experience to arrive [at] a place like that. But if no one gives you the space to be there, how do you get the experience? You can study so much, but at the end it becomes very abstract. It’s all by doing that you learn this.

So, LA has been that space for me. It’s a space where I can grow and expand on my knowledge, and also bring a unique perspective that I have. Because, at the end of the day, in Latin America, classical music arrived with opera. If you see the story of Mexico, the story of Colombia, Brazil, those big places, classical music arrived by the operas of Puccini, Verdi, all of that — as we are young countries. So, we do have a tradition of opera, and we have a perspective that gives us the space to tell stories as well.

Could you talk a little bit about how you balance motherhood what’s very clearly a busy work schedule, travel and rehearsals?

Happy to talk to you about that. The one thing that I can say is that being a mother … has given me so much perspective on time management as a musician. And I say that I don’t think there’s any balance. Sometimes I am at home exclusively with my daughter, and sometimes I have to just work a lot.

And I’m grateful to have a team where my daughter is. Sometimes I travel with her, sometimes it’s just not possible. But when that doesn’t happen, when I’m not traveling with her, she’s well taken care of. She’s loved, she’s taken care of by my parents and my husband. Everybody plays a role in her growing up as a very well-adjusted kid. So, I think the balance for me, trying to live in the present and when I have those times that I can share fully, I’m there. There’s no music, and I’m just her mother. And when I have to work, I have to work.

She is a baby still, but at the same time, she understands that when Mom has to go work, she knows and she goes to play somewhere else. So, it’s a beautiful thing, and I really love being a mother. It’s like one of the things that I never thought would make me a better musician. But I truly believe that my knowledge, my love for music, my personality has expanded because I’m a mother.

Would you like to see her have a life in music as well?

Yes, I would love to. But honestly, whatever she wants. I come from a family of doctors, if she wants to be a doctor, but whatever she wants, as long as her life is fulfilled.

In a city like San Antonio, where there’s a large Latino community, do you think it’s important that musical groups like the Philharmonic showcase, not just the European composers, but also composers from Latin America?

Absolutely. Without a doubt. … I hope I don’t sound repetitive, but I think that [with] curating concerts, it’s all about telling a story. And you get tired of hearing the same story all the time.

So, there’s so much beautiful literature and music from other sides of the world. Yes, too, from Latin America, [and] being exposed to things that you’ve never heard is important. It’s not only about understanding it and knowing it, it’s also experiencing it.

It’s the same as [if someone tells] you a good story. It doesn’t matter where it comes from. If you are drawn by it, you’re going to have a great time. So, if you [experience] a world that only tells one side of the story, it’s a world that loses other perspectives. That’s why I think it’s important to have more music in the mix.

$25-$85, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 21, and Saturday, Feb. 22, Scottish Rite Hall, saphil.org.

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This article appears in Feb 19-25, 2025.

Sanford Nowlin is editor-in-chief of the San Antonio Current. He holds degrees from Trinity University and the University of Texas at San Antonio, and his work has been featured in Salon, Alternet, Creative...