Last Friday’s Charleston Symphony “Backstage Pass” concert at the Sottile Theatre capped the series’ early emphasis on the huge (and little-known) body of engaging music from south of the border – and by that I mean not only Mexico, but south all the way into South America.

The program’s title came from the first work, “hot” Puerto Rican composer Roberto Sierra’s brightly hued and rhythmically vital Fandangos. Written in 2001, it’s based on the Spanish dance-form of the same name: one of those sensual, almost hypnotically repetitive dances that needs an imaginative composer to keep it interesting. And Sierra’s version filled the bill very nicely, with complex and absorbing interludes throughout to keep monotony at bay. Resident Conductor Scott Terrell and his accomplished players made a real toe-tapper of it.

Then we got a well-established classic from Darius Milhaud, a 20th-Century French composer who had soft spots for both Hispanic music and jazz … and both influences are heard in his well-known Bull on the Roof, named after a popular Brazilian tune of the early 1900’s. It’s a smart and sassy number that never loses its headlong drive and earthy folk-flavor, in spite of some really sophisticated musical tricks. The CSO’s deft reading made for pure musical fun.

The incredibly colorful and rhythmically intense music of the tortured Mexican genius Silvestre Revueltas (he drank himself to death by age 40) is slowly gaining the attention it deserves, thanks to adventurous orchestras like the CSO. Unbelievably colorful and almost painfully intense, he’s been described as “Stravinsky on mescal” – and musicologists are beginning to think of him as Mexico’s greatest composer. His Eight on the Radio is a short chamber work for eight instruments that mimics somebody twiddling the station dial on his radio (Mexican stations, of course). A gaggle of the CSO’s gifted first-chair players made the piece sizzle, with irresistible Mariachi flavors.

The final piece was the only one from a real European Hispanic: the first of Spanish master Manuel De Falla’s two suites adapted from his full-length ballet, The Three-Cornered Hat. The work reeks of true Spanish themes and spirit – but his early studies in Paris enabled him to draw upon the methods of composers like Debussy and Stravinsky: influences that give his music both dreamy sensuality and a rich instrumental palette – qualities that our hometown band had no trouble realizing.

If you want to experience an entirely different approach to classical music (no elevated pinkies, stuffy attitudes, or dressing up), be sure to catch the next three programs in this innovative series after the New Year. Go to their website, right HERE, to find out more about them. Not only do Scott’s laid-back intros to each work bring them down to earth, but you can rub elbows with the musicians afterwards at Yo Burrito (two blocks away on Wentworth) to dissect the concert over margaritas (BIG ones). How could you possibly make great music more accessible and public than this? The younger crowds that are showing up for these dependable concerts tells me that the CSO’s quest for fresh audiences is beginning to get real results.