Christian Vásquez and Leo Rondón meet with the Tenerife Symphony to offer the Concerto del Mar for Venezuelan Cuatro and orchestra, it will be next Friday, May 24 at the Adán Martín Auditorium in Tenerife. This concert had a pre-premiere with an instrumental ensemble formed by musicians from the Symphony Orchestra of the Region of Murcia in April 2022 and had its absolute premiere in its final version in May 2023 with the National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia under the direction by Hernández-Silva, so this performance in Tenerife is his true premiere in Spain. Next season, programming is already planned for the seasons of a Spanish and a Polish orchestra, which will be announced in due course. In addition, Vásquez will conduct the Tenerife Symphony with Antrópolis by Gabriela Ortiz, Santa Cruz de Pacairigua, by Evencio Castellanos, and Estancia: Cuatro danzas, op. 8a by Alberto Ginastera.
In this work by Rondón, canonically organized in three movements; Parranda velera, Punto de Cruces and Estribillo de los Pescadores, highlight some of the most popular rhythms of Venezuela, such as the merengue, the parranda, the waltz and the joropo with an oriental chorus, where the four is exploited from its initial conception as a rhythmic accompaniment. to the enormous palette of possibilities that an entire generation of virtuoso Cuatro players have been able to incorporate into the instrument in recent years, integrating it into the symphonic repertoire thanks to contributions from composers such as Gonzalo Grau, Orlando Cardozo, Leonardo Lozano, Juan Carlos Sanz, etc.
After the premiere of his Concerto del Mar, Rondón is already finishing the composition of a new concerto for Cuatro and orchestra titled Concerto del Llano, which will be the second of a trilogy. He will also continue his work in the artistic organization of the PAAX GNP Festival, chaired by the Mexican conductor Alondra de la Parra and which will take place again in June 2024 in the Riviera Maya of Mexico. He continues working with the maestro Alexis Cárdenas and his quartet, and with a duo with the French pianist Thomas Enhco, with whom he published an album with the Chilean tenor Emiliano González Toro, in tribute to the singer Violeta Parra. Known as Leo Rondón, Leonidas Rondón (Guama, Yaracuy, 1984), who was a prominent participant with a podium at the La Siembra del Cuatro Festival in Venezuela, has collaborated with the Quatuor Debussy, L’Arpeggiata by Christina Pluhar and the Mexican tenor Rolando Villazón. Also with orchestras such as the Arctic Philharmonic of Norway, Royal Philharmonic of Galicia, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Orchester National de l’Ile de France, Symphony of the Region of Murcia, Orchestra of Valencia, Symphony of Castilla y León, Orchestra of Extremadura, Symphony of Navarra, Tunisia Symphony Orchestra or Malaga Philharmonic. For years he organized, together with maestro Cristóbal Soto, the Venezuelan Creole Music Summer Course, a Venezuelan music teaching camp in the city of Mirecourt, France. He is currently carrying out his solo project, Leo Rondón Project.
Marina Heredia returns to the Galician Symphony for a two-week stay in which she will present a double program: On May 16 and 17 she will sing El Amor Brujo by Manuel de Falla in the auditoriums of Ferrol and Pontevedra, and the following week, on the 24th and 25th, already at the Palacio de la Ópera de Coruña, she will star in the Spanish premiere of En LIbertad! El camino de los gitanos (In Freedom! The journey of the Gipsies), a work composed together by José Quevedo ‘Bolita’ and Joan Albert Amargós, in which she shares solo roles with Quevedo himself on flamenco guitar and Paquito González on percussion. Both programs will be conducted by maestro Jose Trigueros, who also conducted she on two other previous visits to the Galician Symphony in which the Canciones Españolas Antiguas, compiled and harmonized by Federico García Lorca and orchestrated by Trigueros himself, were performed. In freedom! is the result of a commission from the Duisburger Philharmoniker, with which it was premiered in July 2023.
Marina Heredia is definitely the most demanded singer internationally for this repertoire, only in the last two seasons she could be seen at the Konzerthaus and the Philharmonie of Berlin together with the Berlin Radio Symphony and Pablo Heras-Casado; the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin for a project with mandolinist Avi Avital, in the Laieszhalle of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg for the Martha Argerich Festival, or the Lausitz Festival in Görlitz.
Marina has sung with orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Orchester National de Lille, Orquestra Sinfônica da Casa da Música de Porto, the Rouen Opera or the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with which he recorded El Amor Brujo under the direction 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 Navarra Symphony under the baton of Perry So, RTVE under the direction, again, of Hernández-Silva, the Symphony of the Region of Murcia with Roberto Forés or the North Macedonia Philharmonic with Christian Vásquez
Christian Vásquez comes to Oviedo to replace maestro Alondra de la Parra, who has had to cancel for health reasons, at the head of the Oviedo Filarmonía, for a program that includes songs by Haydn, Mozart and Verdi, with Rolando Villazón as soloist, Danzón No. 2 by Arturo Márquez and Symphony No. 8 in G major, op.88, by Dvořák. The concert will take place next Thursday, May 9 at the Príncipe Felipe Auditorium in Oviedo. This unforeseen substitution precedes his visit to the Tenerife Symphony the following week, with which he will conduct the Concerto el Mar, for Venezuelan Cuatro and orchestra, along with works by Gabriela Ortiz, Evencio Castellanos and Alberto Ginastera.
Christian Vásquez is one of the most prolific Venezuelan musical talents of recent years. Recognized for his charismatic stage presence, powerful performances, and musical integrity, Vásquez continues to attract international attention as one of today’s leading conductors. Christian was born in Caracas in 1984. He began his music studies as a violinist and member of the renowned musical education program ‘El Sistema’. In 2006 he began his studies in orchestral conducting under the tutelage of maestro José Antonio Abreu, and that same year he was named Music Director of the José Félix Ribas Youth Symphony, in the state of Aragua. He was a Dudamel scholarship recipient during the 2009/10 season.
Following his debut with the Gävle Symphony Orchestra in October 2009, one of his first appearances in Europe, Christian Vásquez was appointed its Principal Guest Conductor, a position he held between 2010 and 2013. In 2010 he was also named Music Director of the Symphony Orchestra Teresa Carreño from Venezuela, and has continued to lead it since 2017, when it changed its name to Orquesta Juan Jose Landaeta. With this formation, which continues to be the most important youth orchestra in Venezuela, they have made many interesting international tours that have taken them to stages in London, Berlin, Lisbon, Hamburg, Milan, Toulouse, Vienna, Amsterdam, Salzburg, Munich, Stockholm, Istanbul, Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai.
Christian Vásquez became Chief Conductor of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra at the beginning of the 2013/14 season, inaugurating an initial four-year mandate that would be extended for a further two years until 2019, following a successful relationship with the orchestra. He began his tenure with a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in the orchestra’s new hall in August 2013. He led the orchestra on several tours through Scandinavia, Russia, Germany and the Netherlands, presenting ambitious programs and receiving critical acclaim. favorable. In the 2015/16 season he became Principal Guest Conductor of the Het Gelders Orkest (Arnhem Symphony Orchestra), beginning his tenure with a tour of the Netherlands with an exclusively Latin program. In the spring of 2015, Christian achieved further success by directing four performances of Bizet’s Carmen at the Norwegian Opera.
In addition to his many responsibilities with the Gävle Symphony Orchestra and his regular engagements in Stavanger and Arnhem, Christian Vásquez has worked with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchester de la Suisse Romande, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Rotterdam, Salzburg Camerata, Russian State Symphony, Tokyo Philharmonic and Singapore Symphony Orchestra. In 2010, Vásquez made his debut with the Israel Philharmonic at the invitation of music director Zubin Mehta. During the 2010/2011 season he also conducted the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, the Orchester National du Capitole de Toulouse, the Orchester Philharmonique de Radio France and the National Orchestra of Belgium. In North America, Vásquez has conducted the National Arts Center Orchestra (Ottawa), the New Jersey Symphony, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Vásquez has since again conducted the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and the Camerata Salzburg on international tours with performances at the Grosses Festspielhaus, Wiener Konzerthaus, Alte Oper Frankfurt and the Berliner Philharmonie, as well as the Royal Northern Sinfonia, Orchester National du Capitole de Toulouse , Galician Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Konzerthausorchester, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Warsaw Beethoven Festival Orchestra, Turku Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Mexican National Symphony, Poznan Philharmonic in Poland, Royal Danish Orchestra, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, RTE National Orchestra of Ireland, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra with Pinchas Zukerman, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra for Beethoven’s Ninth as part of the orchestra’s long December tradition, or the two editions of the Tongyeong International Music Festival in Korea to which he has been invited. From 2021 to 2023 Vásquez also assisted Gustavo Dudamel in the new production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at the Paris Opera, and made his debut with the Paris Opera Orchestra and the Ballet School of the Opera conducting four performances at the Opera Garnier.
In his commitment to education and youth, he frequently conducts youth orchestras such as the InterHarmony International Festival Youth Orchestra, the Barcelona Youth Orchestra (Spain) or the Geneva Conservatory Orchestra (Switzerland), in addition to his frequent concerts with the Juan José Landaeta and other orchestras of ‘El Sistema’. Vásquez has worked with world-class musicians such as Simon Rattle, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Pacho Flores, Truls Mork, Sol Gabetta, Sergio Tiempo, Ray Chen, Kolja Blacher, Veronika Eberle, James Ehnes, Elina Vähälä, Sergey Khachatryan, Liza Ferschtman, Arabella Steinbacher, Benjamin Schmid, Alexandra Soumm, Antoine Tamestit, Natalie Clein, Julian Steckel, Claudio Bohorquez, Narek Hakhnazaryan, Amanda Forsyth, Jamie Walton, Pei-Jee Ng, Jian Wang, Edicson Ruiz, Martin Grubinger, Kari Kriikku, Hakan Hardenberger, Tine Thing Helseth, Juan Ferrer, Reinhold Friedrich, Colin Currie, Simon Trpceski, Jonathan Biss, Kyrill Gerstein, Makoto Ozone, Håvard Gimse, Ingolf Wunder, Nicholas Hodges, Joseph Moog, Kristhyan Benitez, Kristiina Rokashevich, Bertrand Chamayou, Marianna Shirinyan, Lucas Jussen, Ole Kristian Dahl, Roland Pontinen, Igor Levit or Stefan Schulz.
Christian Vásquez returns to the Orchester Pasdeloup in Paris. After his debut last January 2023 with the orchestra at the Paris Philharmonie, in which he conducted works by Beethoven and Dvořàk, he was again invited to conduct two concerts in the current season, the first of which took place last November 11, again at the Grande Salle Pierre Boulez of the Philharmonie, with a program titled South American Tour that included works by Gershwin, Lecuona, Gardel, Bonfiglio and Márquez, with pianist Dina Bensaïd and Patricio Bonfiglio & El Sindicato Milonguero as soloists. The second of these concerts will take place at La Seine Musicale next Sunday, April 28, 2024, and with a totally different program that includes works by French authors such as Lalo, Overture to Le Roi d’Ys, and Saint-Saëns, Danse Macabre, Grieg’s piano concerto with François Dumont as soloist and Stravinsky’s The Firebird.
This is being a period of intense activity that includes several premieres, such as the new trumpet concerto by the Colombian-Finnish composer Tuomas Turriago, with the Tampere Orchestra, with Pacho Flores as soloist, then he conducted the Galician Symphony with the Fuga Criolla, by Juan Bautista Plaza, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2, and the absolute premiere of the new clarinet concerto by Pacho Flores, dedicated to Juan Ferrer, who served as soloist, and whom he wiññ also later conduct with the Orchestra of the Region of Murcia, next to La Alborada del Gracioso, by Ravel, and Pictures at an Exhibition, by Musorgski. The Clarinet Concerto by Pacho Flores is a shared commission between the aforementioned orchestras of Galicia and Murcia, and the Extremadura Orchestra.
A little later and with the Tenerife Symphony, Christian will conduct the European premiere of the Concierto del Mar for Venezuelan Cuatro and Orchestra, with the composer himself as soloist, along with works by Gabriela Ortiz, Evencio Castellanos and Alberto Ginastera.
Perry So returns in the middle of the season to the podium of the Navarra Symphony, where he is Music and Artistic Director, to face a double program that he will offer in the usual subscription series at the Baluarte Auditorium in Pamplona on Thursday, February 29, and in the Auditorium of the Palacio Euskalduna in Bilbao, within the program of the Musika/Música Festival, on Sunday, March 3. In both programs the Swedish soprano Camila Tilling acts as soloist, in the first, which is titled The Voice of the Earth, she will provide her voice to Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, which will be preceded by the absolute premiere of the work Climate Change, by Vicent Egea, commissioned by the Baluarte Foundation; in the second, as the protagonist of Francis Poulenc’s Stabat Mater, preceded by Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 6.
Perry So began his journey as Music and Artistic Director of the Navarra Symphony in the 2022/23 season, and starting next season he will combine with his new responsibility as Music Director of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, the city that hosts the University from Yale, one of the most prestigious in the world and where Perry earned a degree in Comparative Literature.
Perry So has worked with the orchestras of Cleveland and Minnesota, the symphonies of Houston, Detroit, New Jersey, Nürenberg, Israel and Shanghai, the Chinese Philharmonic, Residentie Orkest of The Hague and the Szezecin and Zagreb philharmonics. He has been a frequent guest at Walt Disney Hall and the Hollywood Bowl as a Dudamel Conducting Fellow at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He led the Hong Kong Philharmonic with Lang Lang in celebrating the 15th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China at the close of his four-year term as Associate Conductor. In Spain he has conducted the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra, Malaga Philharmonic, Navarra Symphony, Murcia Region Symphony and Asturias Symphony.
He received First Prize and Special Prize at the 5th International Prokofiev Conducting Competition in St. Petersburg. He has recorded extensively with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the BBC Concert Orchestra. His recording of the Barber and Korngold violin concertos with Alexander Gilman and the Cape Town Philharmonic was awarded the Diapason D’Or in 2012. Known for the enormous range of repertoire he conducts, including numerous world premieres on four continents, he has conducted productions of Cosí fan tutte, The Magic Flute, The Turn of the Screw, Giulio Cesare, Gianni Schicchi, Eugene Oneguin or Die Fledermaus. He has been an assistant to Edo de Waart, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gustavo Dudamel, Lorin Maazel and John Adams.
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