Christian Vásquez and Juan Ferrer meet again, this time with the Symphony of the Region of Murcia, to close the premiere cycle of Áurea, Rhapsody for clarinet and orchestra by Pacho Flores, commissioned by the Symphony of Galicia and the Orchestra of Extremadura next to the Murcian orchestra. After the premieres with the Galician Symphony also under Vásquez’s conducting on April 18 and 19, and in Extremadura, where the baton was led by Andrés Salado, Vásquez takes the baton again for this closing on May 31 at the Víctor Villegas Auditorium in Murcia and June 1 at the El Batel Auditorium in Cartagena. This concert is already scheduled to premiere in Germany next season with the Wuppertal Sinfonieorchester, once again led by Christian Vásquez, on April 6 and 7, 2025. The soloist, naturally, is always Juan Ferrer, to whom it is dedicated the concerto.
Christian Vásquez was chief conductor of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra between 2013 and 2019, and principal guest conductor of the Gävle Symphony Orchestra between 2010 and 2013 and of the Het Gelders Orkest from 2015 to 2020. He is currently associate conductor of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and conductor musical of the Juan Jose Landaeta Orchestra, belonging to the SISTEMA of Venezuela. Vásquez has worked with orchestras such as the Philharmonia Orchestra, Residentie Orkest, Orchester de la Suisse Romande, Vienna Radio Symphony, Salzburg Camerata, Russian State Symphony, Orchester National du Capitole de Toulouse, Galician Symphony, Berlin Konzerthausorchester, Sinfónica Prague Radio, Warsaw Beethoven Festival, Poznan, Rotterdam, Helsinki, Turku and Munich Philharmonic Orchestras, Basel Symphony, Estonian National Orchestra, Royal Danish Orchestra, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, RTE National Orchestra Ireland, Tokyo Philharmonic or Singapore Symphony. In North America he has conducted the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, National Arts Center Orchestra (Ottawa) and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, during his participation in their Young Artist Fellowship program.
Juan Ferrer has been a guest of the Leipzig Radio Orchestra, the Liceu Orchestra of Barcelona, the Palau de les Arts of Valencia, the National Orchestra of Catalonia or the RTVE Orchestra among many others and has worked under the orders of some of the most prestigious batons: Gustavo Dudamel, Lorin Maazel, Daniel Harding, Sir Neville Marriner, Osmo Vänska, Guennadi Rozdestvenski, Peter Maag, James Conlon, Jesús López Cobos, Stanislaw Scrowaczewski, Dima Slobodeniouk, Gianandrea Noseda, Christoph Eschenbach, Juanjo Mena or Alberto Zedda among many others. Juan Ferrer is a Professor at the Alfonso He teaches courses in Spain, France, China, Taiwan, Italy, Portugal, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Paraguay, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Belgium, Russia, Argentina, in addition to participating in various editions of the Ibero-American Clarinet Academy in Castelo de Paiva ( Portugal). He has recorded an album with the pianist Daniel Del Pino with works dedicated to him by internationally renowned authors: Salvador Brotóns, Fernado Buide, Eduardo Soutullo, Karolis Biveinis, Octavio Vázquez, Wladimir Rosinskij and Juan Durán.
The New Haven Symphony Orchestra Board of Directors is pleased to announce that Perry So has been appointed as its next Music Director. Perry will assume the title of Music Director beginning with the 2024-2025 season, succeeding Alasdair Neale, who will end his five-year tenure with the orchestra in May 2024. The announcement was made this morning at a press conference held at the Stetson Branch of the New Haven Free Public Library. NHSO Board of Directors President Keith B. Churchwell, MD says: We are truly excited that Maestro So has agreed to join the NHSO as its Music Director beginning with our 2024-25 season. His ties to the New Haven area coupled with his expert musicianship and his great desire to invest in the New Haven community along multiple avenues will continue the work that has matured under Maestro Neale’s leadership over the past four years despite extremely challenging circumstances. We thank Alasdair for his wonderful work and residency with the Symphony and look forward in the coming years to Perry’s tenure with the NHSO!
Perry So is currently Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra. He served as Associate Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Conducting Fellow of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Artistic Collaborator of the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias in Spain, and on the conducting faculty of the Manhattan School of Music. As a student at Yale University he founded an orchestra and led the undergraduate opera company. He received his training as a conductor initially under James Sinclair and subsequently with Gustav Meier at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore and received First and Special Prizes at the International Prokofiev Conducting Competition in St Petersburg, Russia. Perry says: I am deeply honored to be entrusted with the artistic leadership of the New Haven Symphony — the first US professional orchestra I heard when I arrived in this country when I was 18, in the city that my wife and I love and called home for a decade. When I came back this March to work with the orchestra, I encountered an artistically adventurous group of musicians motivated by a profound love for music and dedicated to serving the community. The commitment at every level of the organization to telling a fuller story of our unique American musical heritage than ever before — and doing so in a way that gives voice to those great talents who have been unjustly excluded — gives me great excitement for what we will be able to accomplish together in the years ahead. I look forward to conversations with all of our partners in the weeks and months ahead to learn how we can best serve the New Haven community together. Most of all, I look forward to the many moments of musical joy that we will share in the years to come.
The New Haven Symphony Orchestra’s search process began in 2021 with the formation of a search committee comprising NHSO Board Directors, musicians, and community leaders. After a rigorous screening process of more than 200 applicants from across the globe, the search committee invited four finalists, including So, to rehearse and conduct the orchestra. Throughout the audition process, the search committee received input from the orchestra’s musicians, audience members, community stakeholders, and administrative staff. We are thrilled to welcome Perry So as the next Music Director of the NHSO, says NHSO Concertmaster David Southorn. With his captivating presence on stage and inspiring performance this past spring, we are excited for the artistic journey that lies ahead under his leadership in New Haven.
The fourth-oldest orchestra in America, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra’s exceptional and accessible performances and education programs reach more than 40,000 audience members and 20,000 students each year. Innovative programming and a dedication to the commission of new works inspires deeper audience engagement and meaningful artistic and educational collaborations. Through the nationally-acclaimed Harmony Fellowship program, as well as numerous award-winning education and community engagement programs, the Symphony strives to be a leader for racial equity in the arts.
Manuel Hernández-Silva returns to the Český Krumlov Festival in the Czech Republic to lead the Prague Philharmonia in a Spanish program that includes orchestral music, a guitar concert and zarzuela numbers. He will be accompanied on this occassion by other great Spanish artists such as the guitarist Rafael Aguirre, the soprano Beatriz Díaz and the tenor Pablo García López. The program will begin with Musas y Resuello, by Pacho Flores, which will premiere in the Czech Republic; the Concierto de Aranjuez, by Joaquín Rodrigo, and will feature in the second part a selection of romances, duets and orchestral numbers from zarzuelas by Soutullo, Moreno Torroba, Moreno Buendía, Chapí, Barrera, Giménez and Fernández Caballero. The concert will take place at the Pivovarská Zahrada next Saturday, July 22 at 8:30 p.m.
Hernández-Silva already conducted a similar program last season together with the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, obtaining an overwhelming success in the three concerts they offered of this project, which was video-recorded. On that occasion he was also accompanied by Díaz and Aguirre, while the tenor roles were sung by the Colombian tenor César Gutiérrez. With this concert in the Czech Republic, Hernández-Silva closes a great season that began at the Festival de Música Sacra de Bogotá with the monumental Symphony No. 3 by Henryk Górecki, and continued in Cyprus with Pacho Flores before returning to Spain, where he conducted the Valencia orchestra in a subscription concert at the Iturbi Piano Award, and the Orchestra of the Escuela Superior de Música del País Vasco (Musikene).
Javier Perianes and Hernández-Silva at the Ceski Krumlov Festival in 2017. Photo: Libor Sváček
He then traveled to the US to conduct again the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, beginning an intense period that also took him to France to lead the Orchestra National des Pays de la Loire and then to Norway for a fruitful debut with the Arctic Philharmonic that earned him a new invitation for the 2025/26 season. Afterwards, he returned to America to conduct the opening concert of the Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra season before facing a double invitation with the Galician Symphony, where he also had the opportunity to conduct its young orchestra. He would yet return to Latin America on two other occassions to conduct a subscription concert of the National Symphony of Colombia and to attend a second invitation in the season of the Buenos Aires Philharmonic. Next season, Hernández-Silva will have a greater presence in Spain with returns to orchestras such as Granada, Córdoba or Murcia, while abroad he is expected in Poland, Sweden, Argentina or Singapore.
