Aarón Zapico opens the 72nd edition of the Granada International Music and Dance Festival at the Palace of Carlos V on Wednesday 21 and Thursday 22 June with a program on the figure of Don Quixote. The core piece will be Falla’s El Retablo de Maese Pedro, in commemoration of the centenary of its premiere on June 25, 1923 at the palace of the Princess of Polignac in Paris, almost exactly 100 years ago. Aarón will lead the Ciudad de Granada Orchestra with Alicia Amo, soprano (Trujamán), David Alegret, tenor (Maese Pedro), José Antonio López, baritone (Don Quixote), Juan Carlos Garvayo, harpsichord, and the Compañía Etcétera, with Enrique Lanz as stage director and responsible for the puppets, set design and projections. The program, entitled El retablo de Maese Pedro. Un tríptico sobre Don Quijote, also includes Burlesque de Quichotte, overture-suite in G major, TWV 55:G1 (1716) by Georg Philipp Telemann, and a selection from Don Quichotte chez la Duchesse, op. 97 (1743) by Joseph Bodin Boismortier.
As the festival explains, Manuel de Falla’s El retablo de Maese Pedro, one of the most unique and important stage works in the history of Spanish music, was premiered at the palace of the Princess of Polignac in Paris on June 25, 1923. Conceived as a brief chamber opera for puppets on an episode of Don Quixote, the work had already been heard in concert version in March of that same year at the Teatro San Fernando in Seville. For the Parisian premiere, Falla had the collaboration of professor, engraver and set designer Hermenegildo Lanz. In 2009, his grandson Enrique Lanz, director of the prestigious Compañía Etcétera, created giant puppets to present the play at the Teatro Real, and it is these puppets that will now arrive on the stage of the Alhambra, together with the OCG, Aarón Zapico, a group of select Spanish singers and a couple of Cervantine works from the Baroque period to complete the programme.
Aarón has just returned from Mexico after conducting the Academia de Música Antigua of the Universidad Autónoma de México in three concerts in various venues of the Mexican capital. The program was made up exclusively of works by Spanish Baroque composers such as José Castel, Francisco Hernández Illana, Vicente Baset, Antonio Literes, Mateo Flecha, José de Nebra, Sebastián Durón or Juan de Navas, grouped under the generic title of Fuego: an imaginary zarzuela of the Hispanic Baroque. Among Aarón’s upcoming commitments are his debuts at the Teatro Real in Madrid to conduct La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola di Alcina by Francesca Caccini, and at the Palau de les Arts in Valencia, where he will conduct Antonio Literes’s Los Elementos. He will also lead orchestras such as the Real Filharmonía de Galicia, the Cordoba Orchestra or the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra. Aarón Zapico is a frequent guest at the Granada Festival. He made his debut in 2011 with Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, which were recorded on an album produced by Winter & Winter. In 2019, Forma Antiqva, the group directed by Zapico, was resident ensemble of the festival. He has also been a teacher in the Manuel de Falla Courses. In 2020, 2021 and 2022, he returned as a teacher and head of the Festival’s Baroque Academy.
Aarón Zapico, conductor Music and Artistic Director of Forma Antiqva Aarón Zapico is one of the most sought-after artists on the musical scene who has considerably contributed to the recovery of the Spanish musical heritage and the renewal of the classical music...
Christian Vásquez and Robert Lakatoš will work together for the first time this coming February 10, with the Polish Baltic Philharmonic to offer a program that includes Henryk Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No. 1 and Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. Lakatoš recently offered this same concert in Spain together with Manuel Hernández-Silva and the Royal Philharmonic of Galicia. Vásquez is coming off garnering extraordinary reviews leading the Orchestre Pasdeloup and assisting Gustavo Dudamel in Tristán and Isolde at the Paris Opera, where he will return in April to direct a ballet performances.
Robert Lakatoš grew up in a musical family and began his studies at the age of seven in his hometown of Novi Sad at the hands of his father, Imre Lakatoš. He was the youngest student to graduate from the Novi Sad Academy of Arts, where he studied under renowned pedagogue Dejan Mihailović. He continued his training at the Zurich University of the Arts with Rudolf Koelman, where he received a Swiss Lyra Foundation Scholarship for Exceptionally Gifted Musicians, and has attended study programs with leading international violinists such as Aaron Rosand at the New York Summit Music Festival, and Julian Rachlin at the Vienna University of Music and Arts. Robert won first prize at the Pablo Sarasate Competition in Pamplona (2015), as well as previously first prize at the Mary Smart Concerto Competition (New York, 2013), and the prestigious Andrea Postacchini (Fermo, Italy, 2012) or Juventudes Musicals from Romania, who opened the doors to his international career on the main stages of the world.
Christian Vásquez has been Music Director of the Teresa Carreño Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, which he conducted on a notable tour of Europe that took them to London, Lisbon, Toulouse, Munich, Stockholm and Istanbul. He 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 to 2020. Following his debut with the Gävle Symphony Orchestra in 2009, Christian Vásquez was named its Principal Guest Conductor between 2010 and 2013. He has worked with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Residentie Orkest, Orchester de la Suisse Romande, Vienna Radio Symphony, Salzburg Camerata, Russian State Symphony, Tokyo Philharmonic and Singapore Symphony. In North America he has conducted the National Arts Center Orchestra (Ottawa) and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, during his participation in their Young Artist Fellowship Program. He has worked with orchestras such as the Royal Northern Sinfonia, Orchester National du Capitole de Toulouse, Symphony of Galicia, Berlin Konzerthausorchester, Prague Radio Symphony, Warsaw Beethoven Festival, Turku Philharmonic, Prague Radio Symphony, Poznan Philharmonic, New Jersey Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, Mexico National, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Basel Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, Estonian National, Gran Canaria Philharmonic or Ireland TEN National. His first operatic engagement in Europe was at the Norwegian Opera with Carmen. Upcoming engagements include the Opéra National de Paris as Gustavo Dudamel’s assistant and concerts in Poland, Spain, Norway, Israel, Korea and the US.
Christian Vásquez will conduct the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra at the LVI Bratislava Music Festival in a program consisting of El Salón México, by Aaron Copland; Symphonie Espagnole, by Edouard Lalo, with the violinist Ivan Zenaty; and La noche de los Mayas, by Silvestre Revueltas. Vásquez, who has just returned from a long stay in Colombia with the Medellin Philharmonic, which he conducted in four different programs throughout the month of September, will travel to Israel and Poland to lead the Haifa Symphony Orchestra and the NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic after the concerts at the Bratislava Festival with the Slovak Philharmonic, before joining the production of Le Nozze di Figaro at the Opéra National de Paris in which he will be assistant conductor to Gustavo Dudamel, the new musical director of the institution.
Christian Vásquez will also visit Spain a couple of times this season to conduct the Navarre and Tenerife symphony orchestras. In Pamplona, he will conduct a program that includes the Concierto-Capricho for harp and orchestra by Xavier Montsalvatge, with the Sevillian harpist Cristina Montes Mateo, and the Symphony No. 3 in F major, op. 90 by Johannes Brahms. In Tenerife he will lead his compatriot and friend, the great trumpeter Pacho Flores, in a program consisting of Danzas Latinas, by Efraín Oscher, Concierto para fliscorno, by Pacho Flores himself, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 e E minor, op. 64. Before the end of the season, he will also pay a visit to the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, where he was principal conductor for six seasons between 2013 and 2019.
Christian Vásquez is currently Musical Director of the Teresa Carreño Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. In addition to his tenure in Stavanger, he has been Principal Guest Conductor of the Het Gelders Orkest between 2015 and 2020, and of the Gävle Symphony Orchestra between 2010 and 2013. He has conducted orchestras such as the Royal Northern Sinfonia, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Berlin Konzerthausorchester, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Warsaw Beethoven Festival Orchestra, Turku Philharmonic, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Poznan Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México, Basel Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Estonian National Orchestra, Danish Royal Orchestra, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, RTE National Orchestra from Ireland, Philharmonia Orchestra, Residentie Orkest, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Salzburg Camerata, Russian State Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Center Orchestra (Ottawa) or Los Angeles Philharmonic. In Spain he has worked with the Galician Symphony Orchestra, Gran Canaria Philharmonic, Sinfónica de Castilla y León or Symphony Orchestra of the Principality of Asturias.
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