Fiesta de Tambores is a celebration of the diversity of contemporary music by leading Latin American composers, with an emphasis on percussion as a unifying cultural aesthetic - marimbas, timpanis, and a wide variety of instruments are guaranteed to quicken your pulse and keep your feet tapping! The program will feature music by Gabriela Ortiz (Mexico), Tania Leon (Cuban American), and Carlos Sanchez Gutierrez (Mexican-American), Ney Rosauro (Brazil), as well as the chamber orchestra version of the classic composition Sensemaya by late Mexican composer Silvestre Rivueltas. Altar de Neón (1995) a seminal work of Ortiz will be the U.S. premiere, and sin normas ajenas (1994) by Leon, commissioned by the U.S.-Mexico Fund for Culture, will be the Bay Area premiere.