Maestro Christian Vásquez will be conducting in Italy and Poland for the next two weeks: in Italy, he will lead the Sicilian Symphony Orchestra on November 26 and 27 at the Politeama Garibaldi Theater, in a program that includes concerts for saxophone and orchestra by Glazunov and Pierre-Philippe Bauzin, with saxophonist Alex Sebastianutto, and Symphony No. 8 by Dvořák. In Poland, he will conduct the National Music Forum Wrocław Philharmonic Orchestra (NFM Filharmonia Wrocławska) on December 3. The program includes Vaughan Williams’s Suite for Viola and Orchestra, with Artur Tokarek as soloist, and Bizet’s Symphony in C. Immediately afterwards, Christian will travel to Paris to assist Gustavo Dudamel in the production of Le nozze di Figaro at the National Opera of Paris, whose performances will take place throughout the months of January and February, just before returning to Spain to lead the Navarra Symphony Orchestra, in a program that includes the Concerto-Capriccio for harp and orchestra by Xavier Montsalvatge with the harpist Cristina Montes, and Brahms’ 3rd Symphony.
Christian Vásquez was Music Director of the Teresa Carreño Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, leading them on an important tour around Europe which took them to perform in London, Lisbon, Toulouse, Munich, Stockholm and Istanbul. Vásquez has also been Principal Conductor of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra between 2013 and 2019, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Het Gelders Orkest from 2015 till 2020, a tenure he started with a tour around The Netherlands featuring an all-Latin programme.
Following his debut with the Gävle Symfoniorkester in October 2009, one of his first appearances in Europe, Christian was appointed Principal Guest Conductor between 2010 and 2013. He has worked with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Residentie Orkest, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Vienna Radio Symphony, Camerata Salzburg, State Symphony of Russia, Tokyo Philharmonic and Singapore Symphony. In North America, he has conducted the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa) and Los Angeles Philharmonic, the latter during his participation in their Young Artist Fellowship Program.
Since then he has conducted orchestras in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Poland, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland, Estonia, Ireland, USA, Mexico, Brazil, Korea, etc. Christian’s first opera engagement in Europe was at the Norwegian Opera with Carmen. Christian Vásquez started playing the violin at the age of 8, in the city of San Sebastián de los Reyes (Aragua State). In 2006 he began his studies of orchestral conducting under maestro José Antonio Abreu, and that same year he was appointed musical director of the José Félix Ribas Youth Symphony Orchestra, in the Aragua State.