Abraham Cupeiro, who recently toured the UK with some of the country’s leading orchestras, now returns to the island to perform with the Scottish BBC Symphony Orchestra in the Celtic Connections series alongside Finnish folk stars Frigg and conducted by Janne Nisonen. The concert will take place on 19 January at Glasgow’s City Hall at 19:30.
A builder and multi-instrumentalist, what characterises Abraham Cupeiro is the recovery of instruments lost in time and using them to create new sonorities and imbricate them in music that is alien to them. He studied trumpet at the RCSMM, and later completed a master’s degree in Early Music Performance at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. However, although he is classically trained, he has always been attracted to all kinds of music. Thus, from an early age he has been a member of folk, jazz and early music groups. As an instrumentalist, he stands out for being one of the few people who plays the Karnyx (Celtic trumpet from the Iron Age). He was recently invited to try out the Tintignac Karnyx, which is the only one that appeared in its entirety in 2004. He has rescued from oblivion instruments rooted in classical culture such as the Greek Aulos and the Roman Cornu. He is also the promoter of an ancestral instrument in the Galician tradition: the corna. An instrument that his grandfather played and that appears in the illuminations of Alfonso X.
His interest in organology has led him to build up a collection of more than 200 instruments from all over the world and from different periods. It is a collection that he teaches in the form of a concert-monologue under the name Resonando en el Pasado (Resonating in the Past). Abraham recovers and builds different instruments, and performs with them from his own music to music of today, and mixes them with modern formations. These blends can be seen in his work Compromiscuo with Belarusian accordionist Vadzim Yukhnevich, as well as in works written especially for him such as Wladimir Rosinsky’s Concierto Misterio with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia. Other composers who have written for Abraham include Bernd Redman, Enrique Rueda and Mark Pogolski. Os Sons Esquecidos (The Forgotten Sounds) is a project that was recorded with the Filharmonía de Galicia on the Warner Classics label. After its premiere, it has been performed with different orchestras in Spain, Europe and America.
In 2018 Abraham released a new project: PANGEA, which was recorded in November 2019 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London at Abbey Road Studios, and was released in September 2020 on the Warner Classics label, and in 2024 he launched the recording of a new project, MYTHOS, again with the RPO, which was presented in Spain with the Oviedo Filarmonía and this season can be seen with the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada or the Sinfónica de Bilbao. Among the orchestras with which he has played are the Sinfónica de Galicia, Real Filharmonía de Galicia, Royal Philharmonic, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Filarmónica de Gran Canaria, Orquesta Sinfónica de Bilbao, Orchestre National de Bretagne, Kymi Sinfonietta, Vaasa City Orchestra, etc. He was requested by the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja for the project Les Adieux, at La Philharmonie in Berlin and Laeiszhalle in Hamburg among others. He has composed the soundtrack for the film Maria Solinha and collaborates with the 14th Street company of the Oscar-winning Hans Zimmer. He regularly collaborates in Adolfo Domínguez fashion shows with live performances. He also works for the science outreach project Neuston 3, which aims to raise awareness of the importance of the ocean in our lives.
Perry So will conduct the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie on 19 January in the Hunsrückhalle in Simmern with a programme including Mozart’s Symphony No. 31 Paris, the Piano Concerto No. 2 and the Allegro appassionato for piano and orchestra, Op. 70 by Saint-Saëns, with pianist Anny Hwang as soloist, and Francis Poulenc’s Sinfonietta. Shortly afterwards he conducted Verdi’s La Traviata at the Baluarte in Pamplona in a production by the Sferisterio de Macerata with Henning Brockhaus as stage director, which we will report on in this blog. 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 and Music Director of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. Under his leadership, the Navarre Symphony Orchestra has toured to critical acclaim, widely lauded for the “artistic vitality” of its programming, and the ensemble, Spain’s oldest orchestra, 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 Partner of the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias in Spain 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 in 2012. 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 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.
Marina Heredia sings El Amor Brujo by Falla and the Canciones Españolas Antiguas compiled and harmonised by Federico García Lorca, orchestrated by José Trigueros, with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León conducted by Thierry Fischer, at the Cartagena International Music Festival in Colombia. In addition to her appearances with the orchestra, the cantaora also offers a flamenco recital with her quintet.
Under the title El flamenco. Identity and heart of Andalusia, the flamenco recital will take place on Tuesday 7 January in the Chapel of the Hotel Sofitel Santa Clara at 16:00, while the symphonic concerts will take place in the Teatro Adolfo Mejía at 19:00 on the 8th and 9th. Previously and in preparation for these concerts Marina had already performed with the OSCyL last November, within the framework of the Festival de Música de Miranda de Ebro, on this occasion under the baton of José Trigueros.
Marina Heredia is definitely the most internationally demanded cantaora for this repertoire, just in the last two seasons she could be seen at the Konzerthaus and the Berlin Philharmonie with the Berlin Radio Symphony; the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, in the Laieszhalle of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, or the Lausitz Festival in Görlitz, and has sung with orchestras of the stature of the Chicago Symphony or San Francisco Symphony, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, where she was resident artist and premiered in Spain En Libertad!, a new work for cantaora and orchestra by José Quevedo and Joan Albert Amargós commissioned and premiered by the Duisburger Philharmoniker, Orchestre National de Lille, Orquestra Sinfônica da Casa da Música do Porto, the Rouen Opera or 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, as well as with the Sinfónicas de Navarra under the baton of Perry So, of RTVE, Sinfónica de la Región de Murcia with Roberto Forés or the North Macedonian Philharmonic with Christian Vásquez.
Leo Rondón plays with the Duisburger Philharmoniker on 18 and 19 December at the Mercatorhalle in Duisburg as soloist with Pacho Flores and conducted by Alondra de la Parra. The works in which he will take part are Concerto Venezolano by Paquito D’Rivera and Cantos y Revueltas. Fantasía concertante for trumpet and Venezuelan cuatro by the trumpeter himself.
A ‘cuatrista’, guitarist, double bass player, composer-arranger and producer, he won third place in the Siembra del Cuatro 2007, second place in 2012 at the national level, as well as second place in 2011 as a cuatrista in the festivals of El Silbón (Venezuela) and San Martín (Colombia). He is currently a cuatrista, arranger and producer of the Ávila Quartet, a quartet of Venezuelan music, as well as cuatrista with the Ensemble L’Arpeggiata, directed by Christina Pluhar, Alexis Cárdenas and Recoveco, Venezuelan Roots and Joropo Jam, in addition to his solo project Leo Rondón Project.
He has performed in different important concert halls and festivals in Venezuela, Colombia, Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Sweden, United Kingdom, Belgium, Holland, Kazakhstan and Morocco, with different ensembles and in collaboration with artists such as Rolando Villazón, Emiliano González Toro, Richard Galliano, Didier Lockwood, Cristóbal Soto, Ricardo Sandoval, Alexis Cárdenas, Simón Bolívar Big Band de Jazz, Omar Acosta and Roberto Koch, among others. As a soloist he has appeared with Alexis Cárdenas and Recoveco in the show El Fuego Latino organised by the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France and under the baton of the maestro Alondra de la Parra, presenting seven concerts in the Paris region, including the important concert hall Philharmonie de Paris. In June 2022 he made her debut at the Salzburg Pentecost Festival.
In Spain he has performed with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia, Orquesta Filarmónica de Málaga, Sinfónica de Navarra, Sinfónica de la Región de Murcia, Orquesta de Extremadura, Orquesta de Valencia, Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria, Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, Orquesta de Córdoba, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, Sinfónica de Tenerife, as well as Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Arctic Philharmonic of Norway, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre National du Pays de la Loire, Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia, Filarmónica del Norte de Macedonia or Festival PAAX de México. Among his recent and future engagements are his returns to Extremadura, to the PAAX Festival in Mexico with Alondra de la Parra, the Sinfónica de Tenerife or the Arctic Philharmonic, and with the Duisburger Philharmoniker or the Baltic Philharmonic of Poland. He has participated in the album Cantos y Revueltas, by Pacho Flores, for Deutsche Grammophon. Leo Rondón uses a cuatro made by Mathias Caron.
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