Maestro Carlos Piantini, who has a professional career in both countries, conducted the concert. This event was the closing ceremony for the eleventh annual Dominican Week in the United States, which, during this year, carried out a series of activities that ranged from those with an entrepreneurial basic to those that were more academic and cultural in nature. These activities reunited representatives from the Dominican community in the US, official authorities from both countries as well as a broad base of interested public.

Dr. Luis Heredia  Bonetti, a lawyer trained in the United States, chairs the organizing committee of the Dominican Week in the United States. He mentioned that the main goal of this effort consists in projecting an inclusive and multidimensional view of the Dominican-American community. With this eleventh offering, the organizing committee strengthened a tradition that started in 1992 and has fostered the bilateral ties between the United States and the Dominican Republic as well as served as support for the Dominican-American community. This celebration has also raised interest and fostered the attention given to Dominican affairs.

Carlos Piantini, along with Alvaro Manzano, the Musical Director of the National Symphony Orchestra, prepared a program that included musical pieces from classical composers such as the “Pastoral Suite” by Manuel Simó, “Simastral” by Juan F. Garcia, “Fantasía Criolla” (Dominican Fantasy) by Bienvenido Bustamante, “A la caída de la tarde” (At sundown) by José Dolores Cerón, “Mangulina and Carabine” (two folkloric rythms) by Luis Mena, “San Antonio” (patron saint of lovers) by Francisco (Ñico) Lora, “El primer beso” (The first kiss), a vals, by Julio Alberto Hernández, “Mi Quisqueya” (My Quisqueya, Quisqueya being the name given by native-Dominicans to the island before the arrival of the Spaniards in the XV Century) by Mercedes Sagredo, “La bilirrubina” (bilirrubine, an element present in human blood) by Juan Luis Guerra and the all time famous merengue, “Caña Brava” (an expression that can be roughly translated as “bitter cane”, referring to the hard work conditions faced by sugar cane laborers during the nineteenth and early twentieth century), by Antonio Abreu.

Other sponsors of the concert included Verizon, the Dominican-American Chamber of Commerce of New York, the National Association of Supermarkets in the United States, the Dominican Assistance Fund, Fundación Sinfonía, and the Secretary of State of Culture of the Dominican Republic.

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