Conductor Devin Patrick Hughes approaches classical music as a kind of quest. “Our music, our orchestras, our art form, just the nature of the ensemble has so many amazing attributes that teach us about community, that teach us about harmony, about working together,” the Colorado-based conductor told Intermezzo host Leora Zeitlin in this Zoom interview. “It’s really a quest,” he said, for him and many of his colleagues, "to bring this music to as many people as possible.”

That’s what he’ll do this weekend when he guest conducts the Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra in two concerts inspired by dance. The program includes works by Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera, Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály, American composer (and now Las Cruces resident) Barbara Harbach, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.

“The idea of dance is so intricately linked to what we do on stage as musicians,” he said, noting that Richard Wagner called Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 the “apotheosis of the dance.” For that reason he programmed it with works more explicitly related to dance traditions. He went on to demonstrate how rhythms from Ginastera’s 20th century “Estancia” go back to Spanish courtly dances, while Beethoven was influenced by the Irish jig. “I love being able to put a program like this together because you see how all music is linked together.”