That one of the eager audience members at Tuesday’s Art of Elan Concert arrived at the San Diego Museum of Art on a skateboard is an indication of the demographic aspirations of this feisty musical series. Opening its fifth season in the museum’s Hibben Gallery, Elan’s crew of youthful performers focused on recent classical chamber music from Mexico, certainly an underrepresented segment of the standard music repertory heard in San Diego’s music venues.

To ease its audience into the Mexican ethos, Elan invited Mariachi Garibaldi from Southwestern College to play in the atrium outside the Hibben gallery a half hour before the concert. These 15 students in bright red traditional costumes charged the air with their ardent strains and piercing trumpet obbligatos.

On Art of Elan’s program, however, only Arturo Márquez’s vibrant “Homenaje a Gismonti” for string quartet equalled the Southwestern students’ extroverted enthusiasm. Not that Mexican music should be limited to a single mode, of course, but the understated quality of most of Elan’s musical selections stacked the deck in a way that seemed less than congruous to Mexican culture and temperament.

As usual, Art of Elan’s performance level was exemplary. In the Márquez string quartet, violinist and Art of Elan Artistic Director Kate Hatmaker’s vigorous account of the composer’s rakish themes precisely characterized this homage to the Brazilian third-stream contemporary composer Egberto Gismonti. In a single movement, Márquez moves from jazz-inflected urban bustle to bucolic lyricism—interpreted with replendent polish by cellist Abe Liebhaber—and back. Violinist Pei-Chun Tsai and violist Travis Maril brought equal conviction and skill to their roles.

Hearing the solo guitar music of Miguel Ordóñez for the first time, his suite “21 Grupos” played with assurance by Colin McAllister, made me wonder why American classical guitarists do not champion his music. As suave and deftly constructed as the popular dances by the Venezuelan Antonio Lauro and as ingratiating as the work of his fellow countryman Manuel Ponce, Oliva’s alluring, laconic modernism is as direct and compelling as a brightly-hued Rufino Tamayo painting.

As accompanist to three songs by Julio César Oliva, “Por Siempre Sabines,” McAllister proved both stylish and sympathetic to soprano Barbara Tobler’s nuanced interpretation of these anguished love poems. Both the purity of her vocal line and the generous arc of her gleaming voice amply graced Oliva’s limpid melodies, but given the texts (one begins “It’s not that I die of love, I die of you”), less nuance and more passion is called for. Oliva’s tonal style is much like that of the Spanish composers Joaquín Rodrigo and Fernando Obradors, and it was rewarding to hear a contemporary Mexican heir to this tradition.

Javier Alvarez’s “Temazcal,” the evening’s one avant-garde offering, put percussionist Justin DeHart center stage with a maraca in each hand, adding a deftly choreographed theme and variations of rhythmic rattle to a pre-recorded minimalist soundscape. DeHart’s “aria” for maracas proved mesmerizing, and in the tradition of Spanish percussionists, he avoided direct eye contact with his audience, even as he drew them into his spell. What could have been just a clever gimmick turned into a memorable tour de force.

McAllister opened the concert with the only non-contemporary piece, Santiago de Murcia’s “Fandango” for solo guitar. Although Murcia was born in Spain in the late 17th century, he spent his adult years in Mexico, or at least that is a logical inference, since his only extant music was discovered in Mexican libraries. McAllister’s peformance was a bit studied, but it was relieved by Dehart’s clever, improvised castanet accompaniment.

Art of Elan’s next offering on the SDMA series is Wynton Marsalis’ “A Fiddler’s Tale,” the jazzmaestro’s adaptationof Igor Stravinsky’s “The Soldier’s Tale”: November 29, 2011.

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