Christian Vásquez and Marina Heredia join the Philharmonic of the Republic of North Macedonia to offer a Spanish and Latin American program that includes four of the Canciones españolas antiguas compiled and harmonized by Federico García Lorca, in an original orchestration by José Trigueros (Anda, jaleo; Las morillas de Jaén; Cuatro Muleros and Sevillanas del siglo XVIII), El Amor Brujo and El Sombrero de Tres Picos, Suite nº 2, by Manuel de Falla, along with the suite from the ballet Estancia, by Alberto Ginastera. The concert will take place next Thursday, February 15, at the Skopje Philharmonic Hall.
Lorca’s songs in their present orchestration were premiered in December 2021 by Marina Heredia herself, together with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia and José Trigueros at the baton, at the Ciudad de la Cultura in Santiago de Compostela. This performance under conductor Christian Vásquez will be the first outside of Spain. This coming April, again with Trigueros at the baton and together with the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla, Marina will again perform these songs at the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville.
This is the first time that Christian Vásquez and Marina Heredia will coincide for a symphonic project, although both of them have long careers with orchestras around the world. Last season, Marina Heredia, together with flamenco guitarist José Quevedo ‘Bolita’ and percussionist Paquito González as co-soloists, premiered a new work at the Mercatorhalle in Duisburg that adds to the symphonic repertoire for flamenco singer and symphony orchestra: In Freedom. The Journey of the Gipsies, a work composed by Quevedo himself together with Joan Albert Amargós, who also conducted the Duisburger Philharmoniker.
Christian Vásquez will conduct the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra in two concerts that will take place on November 16 and 19 at the Jing Jing hall in Shanghai and the Grand National Theater in Beijing. The program consists of Guasamacabra, by the recently and prematurely disappeared Paul Desenne, Three Symphonic Versions, by Julián Orbón, and the Symphony No. 10 in E minor Op.93, by Dmitri Shostakovich.
Christian has just conducted the Orchestre Pasdeloup in Paris, the oldest active orchestra in France, and will now have an important presence in Spain leading orchestras such as the Galician Symphony Orchestra, the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra and the Symphony Orchestra of the Region of Murcia, where, among other works, he will conduct the premieres of the Clarinet Concerto by Pacho Flores with Juan Ferrer, the dedicatee of the work, as soloist, or the concert for Venezuelan cuatro by Leo Rondón, with the composer himself as soloist.
Christian Vásquez was Music Director of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra between 2013 and 2019, Principal Guest Conductor of the Het Gelders Orkest in the Netherlands from 2015 to 2020, and of the Gävle Symphony Orchestra between 2010 and 2013. He is also Music Director of the Juan José Landaeta Symphony Orchestra in Venezuela, previously known as the Teresa Carreño Symphony Orchestra, and has conducted other orchestras such as the Philharmonia Orchestra, Residentie Orkest, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Center Orchestra in Ottawa, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Galician Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Konzerthausorchester, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Turku Philharmonic, Philharmonic of Luxembourg, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic, Mexican National Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Gran Canaria Philharmonic, Estonian National Orchestra, Royal Danish Orchestra, Norwegian Radio Orchestra or the RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, among many others.
Marina Heredia will sing El Amor Brujo by Manuel de Falla with the Symphony Orchestra of the Region of Murcia under the baton of Roberto Forés on November 16 and 17 at the Víctor Villegas Auditorium in Murcia and the Infanta Elena Auditorium in Águilas, respectively. Marina returns to El Amor Brujo after closing last season with the enormous success of En Libertad. El camino de los gitanos, a new work by José Quevedo “Bolita” and Joan Albert Amargós that was commissioned and premiered by the Duisburger Philharmoniker.
This premiere was part of an artistic residency of the cantaora in the season of the German orchestra, with which she also sang El Amor Brujo. Marina will perform again this immortal work by Falla along with the Spanish premiere of En Libertad with the Galician Symphony Orchestra and conductor José Trigueros, under whose baton she will also perform Canciones Españolas Antiguas by Federico García Lorca accompanied by the Royal Symphony Orchestra of Seville.
Marina Heredia is definitely the most in-demand singer internationally for this repertoire. Only last year and in Germany, she appeared at the Konzerthaus, the Philharmonie and the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, at the Laieszhalle of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, and at the Lausitz Festival in Görlitz. Marina has performed with orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony, Orchestre National de Lille, Orquestra Sinfônica da Casa da Música do Porto, the Rouen Opera, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with which she recorded El Amor Brujo under the baton of Pablo Heras-Casado, or the production of La Fura del Baus for the Granada Festival under the baton of Manuel Hernández-Silva, as well as with the Navarre Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Perry So or the RTVE Orchestra, again under Hernández-Silva.
Hernández-Silva, Pacho Flores and Leo Rondón meet again to continue presenting the work Cantos y Revueltas throughout the globe, this time together with Albares, the flugelhorn concerto also composed by the Spanish-Venezuelan trumpeter. On this occasion the stage is the Örebro Konserthus, where they will be accompanied by the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. The program also includes the new orchestration of Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition by the Swedish composer Christian Lindberg.
Premiered and recorded for Deutsche Grammophon in January 2018 with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia at the Auditorio de Galicia, Cantos y Revueltas has already been performed in places as different as Miami, Fort Worth (Texas), Malaga, Navarre, Jalisco, Badajoz , Bogotá, Liverpool, Valencia, Valladolid, Segovia, Cuenca, Las Palmas, Montreal, Mexico City, Nicosia, Dartmouth, Tromsø and Bodø in Norway, or Raleigh (North Carolina), and after this concert in Sweden it will still come to Córdoba, Granada, Barcelona, Miami, Vail (Colorado) or Buenos Aires, most of them with the presence of Leo Rondón and the conducting of Manuel Hernández-Silva. Originally written for trumpets, Venezuelan cuatro and strings, Pacho had already arranged a version for full orchestra that was premiered in Norway. In Sweden they will perform the premiere of the classical orchestra version, which will also be heard in Granada next January.
Copyright RFG
Although a more recent composition —it was premiered in April 2022 with the Tenerife Symphony under the baton of Christian Vásquez—, Albares, concert for flugelhorn and orchestra, has already been performed in Caracas, Santiago de Chile, A Coruña, Liverpool and Bogotá. After its Swedish premiere, it will be heard in Singapore, Mexico City and Barcelona, and also be the object of a recording soon.
Perry So opens the 2023/2024 season of the Navarre Symphony Orchestra, his second season as Principal Conductor of the Spanish ensemble. The concerts will take place at 7.30 p.m. on October 5 and 6 at the Auditorio Baluarte in Pamplona and the Centro Cultural de Tafalla, respectively, with a program that includes Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, with the virtuoso Nikolay Lugansky, and Shubert’s Symphony No. 9 in C Major, D. 944 “The Great”. Perry will lead the Navarre Symphony Orchestra in five other subscription programs of a season that will also feature conductors such as Emilia Hoving, Tomas Dausgaard, Pablo González, Jaume Santonja, Delyana Lazarova and Catherine Larsen-Maguire.
Perry So, conductor
Music and Artistic Director of the Navarra Symphony Orchestra Music Director Designated of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra
A dynamic and transformative presence in concert halls on five continents, Perry So is currently Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra (Navarre Symphony Orchestra), and Music Director Designate of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra beginning July 2024. Under his leadership, the Navarre Symphony Orchestra has toured to critical acclaim, widely lauded for the “artistic vitality” of its programming, and the ensemble recognized as currently being at “one of the finest points in its history.”
Perry So was born in Hong Kong and received his early training in piano, organ, violin, viola and composition there. He graduated from Yale University with a degree in literature with a focus on the interaction of literature and music in Central Europe in the modernist era; as a student at Yale he founded an orchestra and led the undergraduate opera company. He received his training as a conductor initially under James Sinclair, then under Gustav Meier at the Peabody Institute. In 2008 he received First and Special Prizes at the Prokofiev Conducting Competition in St Petersburg, Russia. He has since served as Associate Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Conducting Fellow at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Artistic Collaborator of the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias and on the conducting faculty at the Manhattan School of Music.
In recent seasons Perry So made his subscription series debut with the San Francisco Symphony and his European operatic debut at the Royal Danish Opera in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. Other highlights include a tour to Milan with the Nuremberg Symphony and a seven-week tour of South Africa with three orchestras including Verdi’s Requiem in Cape Town. He has appeared with the Cleveland and Minnesota Orchestras, the symphony orchestras of Israel, New Zealand, Shanghai, Houston, Detroit, New Jersey, Tucson, Tenerife and Málaga; the London, China, Seoul and Szezcin Philharmonics; the Residentie Orkest in the Hague and the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie in Koblenz, among others. He toured the Balkan Peninsula at the helm of the Zagreb Philharmonic in the first series of cultural exchanges established after the breakup of Yugoslavia.
His work in the recording studio encompasses a broad sampling of twentieth century British, French and Russian music with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the BBC Concert Orchestra, and his album of Barber and Korngold’s violin concertos with soloist Alexander Gilman and the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra was awarded the Diapason d’Or.
His wide-ranging musical interests encompass world premieres on four continents as well as championing the reintroduction of the Renaissance and Baroque repertory into symphonic programs. His work with young musicians has taken him to the the Round Top Festival, where he serves on the board of trustees, the Australian Youth Orchestra, the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, the Manhattan School of Music, the Hong Kong Academy for the Performing Arts and the Yale School of Music.
Pacho Flores’ latest album for Deutsche Grammophon, ESTIRPE (2022), with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería and conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto has been nominated to the Latin Grammy Awards 2023 in three categories: Best Classical Album; Best Classical Contemporary Composition (Concerto Venezolano by Paquito D’Rivera) and Best Arrangement (Crónicas Latinoamericanas by Daniel Freiberg). In addition to the nominated works by Freiberg and D’Rivera, ESTIRPE also includes compositions by Arturo Márquez, Efraín Oscher and Pacho Flores himself.
Recorded between 3rd and 6th September 2019 at Churubusco Studios in México City with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería and producer Ingo Petri, ESTIRPE includes four new concertos for trumpet and orchestra written for Pacho and the wide collection of trumpets, cornets and flugelhorns expressly manufactured for him by STOMVI. For this recording, Pacho used at least a dozen different instruments. The concertos included in ESTIRPE are Concierto de Otoño by Arturo Márquez, Concerto Venezolano by Paquito D’Rivera, Crónicas Latinoamericanas by Daniel Freiberg, and Efraín Oscher’s Concierto Mestizo, as well as Morocota, a short piece by Pacho himself.
Crónicas Latinoamericanas competes as an arrangement since it was originally written for Paquito D’Rivera’s clarinet under the commission of the West Deutsche Rundfunk of Cologne, which Freiberg adapted for trumpet; Concerto Venezolano and Concierto de Otoño are the result of the project of shared commissions for new trumpet concerts that Pacho himself has been promoting; and Mestizo was commissioned by the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar in 2010. Mestizo was the first big concerto for trumpet and orchestra specially written for several instruments of the trumpet family, so that it can be considered the origin of all those new concerts that these composers, along with others such as Roberto Sierra, Christian Lindberg, Gabriela Ortiz, Igmar Alderete, Tuomas Turriago and a new one by Daniel Freiberg as well, have since written for Pacho and his arsenal of instruments in the last years.
This week Pacho Flores makes his debut with the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra under Carlos Miguel Prieto, accompanied by Héctor Molina, interpreter of cuatro venezolano. The program consists of Haydn’s trumpet concerto and the Concerto Venezolano by Paquito D’Rivera. Concerts will take place at the Meymandi Concert Hall in Raleigh on Friday 22 and Saturday 23 September at 20:00 hour
