When most people think of classical music, the same names come to mind: Bach, Mozart, Handel, Vivaldi. These are extraordinary composers, and their music deserves recognition. But here is something worth sitting with: at the very same time Mozart was writing his symphonies in Vienna, Francisco Courcelle was composing breathtaking sacred music for the Royal Chapel in Madrid, José de Nebra was crafting dramatic zarzuelas that rivaled anything on the Italian stage, and composers across colonial Latin America — from Manuel de Sumaya in Mexico City to Esteban Salas in Cuba — were producing music of equal sophistication, equal beauty, and equal ambition. That music exists. It has always existed. It simply has not always been given a stage. At Orchestra of New Spain, that is exactly what we are here to do — not because this music needs rescuing, but because audiences deserve to hear it, and the communities whose heritage it represents deserve to see it celebrated.

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Our story begins with a music director who went to Spain looking for music. Through a Fulbright Research Fellowship, Grover Wilkins spent years in Spain, communicating directly with scholars and archivists in Spanish, unearthing manuscripts from cathedral and court archives where this music had quietly waited for centuries. That search led to a single concert at the opening of Dallas's Meyerson Symphony Center in 1989, which became the spark that ignited Orchestra of New Spain. It then crossed the Atlantic entirely, with Wilkins founding Madrid Barroco in 1999 — a premier Spanish early music ensemble — building a living, breathing bridge between the music's homeland and the city of Dallas that has never stopped humming. That spirit of bridge-building is not incidental to what we do. It is the whole point. We believe that music has the power to connect people across centuries, across cultures, and across communities — and that belief shapes everything from our transatlantic partnerships to our work here at home. Since 1996, we have partnered with Dallas ISD to bring this music directly into schools, offering free lessons and summer programming to students who might never otherwise encounter it — not as a charity, but as a conviction that every young person deserves access to the full breadth of their musical inheritance. We extend that same invitation to you. Whoever you are, whatever your relationship to classical music, this repertoire belongs to you too. Pull up a chair. This music is for you.