On November 20 at the Auditorio de Galicia, Pacho Flores and Manuel Hernández-Silva will present, together with the Royal Galician Philharmonia, Cantos y Revueltas, Pacho Flores’ new album for Deutsche Grammophon with the Galician orchestra conducted by Hernández-Silva that includes, among other works and as a centerpiece, the homonymous concert for trumpet and Venezuelan cuatro by Pacho Flores himself.
Cantos y Revueltas
Cantos y Revueltas is a fantasia concertante for trumpet, Venezuelan cuatro and strings, premiered last January 2018 in Santiago, Vigo and A Coruña by the Royal Galician Philharmonia under Hernández-Silva, together with cuatro player Leo Rondón and, of course, Pacho Flores’ trumpets. It is a work rooted in old work songs and popular Venezuelan tunes, but also in modern Caribbean-like rhythms. The album begins with the Concerto para corno da caccia by Johann Baptist Georg Neruda, continues with the Aria from Bachiana Brasileira No. 5 by Villa-Lobos, Cantos y Revueltas, El Diablo suelto by Heraclio Fernández and Piazolla’s Winter in Buenos Aires, and was recorded live at the Palacio de la Ópera in A Coruña on January 13, 2018.
This is a double CD-DVD that includes a video recording of the concert and various extras, including interviews revealing the origin of Pacho’s work as well as curiosities about the process that led to its premiere in Santiago and its recording. Cantos y Revueltas is the fourth recording for Pacho Flores with Deutsche Grammophon after Cantar, with the Konzerthausorchester in Berlin conducted Christian Vásquez, Entropía, with guitar player Jesús ‘Pingüino’ González, and Fractales, with the Arctic Philharmonic conducted by Christian Lindberg. These concerts also counted on Pablo Barreiro for the audio recording and Antonio Cid and Joaquín Calderón for the video recording and production, which allowed to obtain a result that met Deutsche Grammophon’s highest artistic and technical standards.
Pacho Flores
Every so often, sometimes after several generations, some artists appear who are a milestone in their respective disciplines. This is the case with Pacho Flores, the great trumpet player of the 21st century so far, who is improving the performance technique and the expressive possibilities of the instrument to unknown levels. In collaboration with his brand, his STOMVI team, he is carrying out a formidable development and technical improvement of the trumpet, with new instruments in different keys and with four pistons that expand its register and palette. Many of these instruments are prototypes only available to Pacho, and only some, once tested, get produced for the market sale.
Pacho is also actively promoting an unprecedented expansion of the repertoire for solo trumpet and orchestra. After releasing some works dedicated to him by composers such as Efraín Oscher (Concierto Mestizo, 2010; Soledad, 2013, included in the album CANTAR; Barroqueana Venezolana nº 2, 2017; and Apex, double concert for trumpet and clarinet, 2018), Giancarlo Castro (Stunning trumpet, 2017), Alain Trudel (Preach pour trumpet et orchestre), etc., Pacho decided to take over and launch a project of shared commissions to some of the most relevant composers nowadays such as Arturo Márquez, Roberto Sierra, Paquito D’Rivera, Efraín Oscher, Christian Lindberg or Daniel Freiberg, which allows a systematic and scheduled update of new works with technical and musical requirements according to the possibilities offered by the new instruments. This program has already begun to bear fruit: Arturo Márquez and Paquito D’Rivera’s works have already been premiered, and the concerts by Roberto Sierra and Efraín Oscher’s will be presented this season. In addition, and in collaboration with his label, Deutsche Grammophon, Pacho is producing the most complete discography on the trumpet performed by the same artist, recording reference versions of the repertoire classics, as well as the new works that, by his own efforts, are joining the literature for this instrument.
Cantos y Revueltas will be presented by the Extremadura Symphony Orchestra with its original cast of soloists and conductor —Pacho Flores, Leo Rondón and Manuel Hernández-Silva— on March 11 and 12. After its premiere in Santiago, Vigo and A Coruña with the orchestra Real Filharmonía de Galicia, and the recording of the concerts that led to a double CD/DVD released by Pacho’s label, Deutsche Grammophon, Cantos y Revueltas has been performed, always with this trio of artists, in Murcia (Murcia Region Symphony), Andalusia (Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra), and Pamplona (Navarre Symphony Orchestra).
Cantos y Revueltas had its American premiere in Miami with the Bolívar Philharmonic Orchestra and cuatro soloist Héctor Molina under Carlos Riazuelo, and later in Mexico, with the Jalisco Philharmonic led by Jesús Medina and Héctor Molina again. After this presentation with the Extremadura Symphony Orchestra, Cantos y Revueltas will be performed again in Colombia, Mexico, Canada, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as in other Spanish cities yet to be announced.
Copyright RFG
In parallel to Cantos y Revueltas, Pacho Flores continues with his project of shared commissions for new trumpet concerts to distinguished composers such as Arturo Márquez, Paquito D’Rivera, Roberto Sierra, Christian Lindberg, Efraín Oscher and Daniel Freiberg. New premieres are scheduled both for the current as well as for next season, before starting a third phase of commissions that will be announced in due course. After these concerts with the Extremadura Symphony Orchestra, Pacho Flores and Manuel Hernández-Silva will meet once again in Colombia with the Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra, an event that will include a new American presentation of Cantos y Revueltas as well as the premiere of one of Pacho’s latest works, a Divertimento for brass ensemble, showing the growing attention that Pacho Flores is paying to his composer facet, and which will soon bring new important news.
The American premiere of Pacho Flores’ work Cantos y Revueltas. Fantasia Concertante for trumpets, Venezuelan cuatro and strings with the Bolívar Phil and cuatro player Héctor Molina under maestro Carlos Riazuelo will take place next June 30 at 11:00 am at the Herbert and Nicole Wertheim Performing Arts Center in Miami. Cantos y Revueltas was premiered on January 11, 2018 at the Auditorio de Galicia in Santiago de Compostela with the Royal Philharmonic of Galicia and two other Venezuelans —conductor Manuel Hernández-Silva and cuatro player Leo Rondón—, to great success from both audience and critics. This premiere was recorded in audio and video and will be the central piece of the next album by Pacho Flores, a double CD/DVD for Deutsche Grammophon that will be coming soon. However, this isn’t Pacho’s first composition, since other works such as Morocota or Labios Vermelhos were already part of his album ENTROPÍA.
Image of the premiere of Cantos y Revueltas, Flores, Rondón, Hernández-Silva and the RFG. Copyright: RFG
Pacho Flores is playing this week with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Gran Canaria, a program that includes Akban Bunka by Christian Lindberg —appearing in FRACTALES, his last album for DG so far— and Concierto Mestizo by Efraín Oscher. He will perform the same repertoire the following week at the 11º Conference of the Brazilian Association of Trumpeters in Campinas.
Flores will then return to Europe to perform Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto and Lindberg’s Akban Bunka with the Sinfonieorchester Basel led by Michal Nesterowicz. After this American premiere in Florida, Cantos y Revueltas will then head for the Southern Cone for another historical premiere in Argentina: the performance by the Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra under Enrique Diemecke of Arturo Sandoval’s Trumpet Concerto No. 1 for the first time since its composition 25 years ago. It will take place on July 11 at Teatro Colón.
After his concert in France wit the Orchestre de Cannes on next April the 21st at the Congress Hall of Antibes Juan-les-Pins under the baton of Benjamin Pionnier and with some of his classics like Concerto para corno de Caccia by Neruda, Aria from the Bachiana Brasileira nº 5 by Villalobos, Gypsy Airs by Sarasate and Winter in Buenos Aires by Piazzolla, Pacho Flores will record his third release for Deutsche Grammophon.
Between April the 30th and May the 3rd, Flores will lock himself together with the Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Christian Lindberg at the Stormen Concert Hall of Bodo, Norway, to record some outstanding trumpet concertos of the repertoire, together with one of the most interesting trumpet concerto of the modern times and some of Pacho Flores’s specialties (we will give more detailed information soon). Part of this repertoire will be played during an European Tour in November that will take place in venues like Bodo and Tromso Concert Halls, home venues of the Arctic Philharmonic; Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Salzburg Festspielhaus and, in Spain, the Auditorio Príncipe Felipe in Oviedo, Palau de la Música in Valencia and ADDA – Auditorio de la Diputación in Alicante.
Pacho Flores, commissions and premieres
Pacho Flores is also developing an ambitious project of shared commission to prominent composers as Arturo Márquez, Roberto Sierra, Paquito D’Rivera, Efraín Oscher and Christian Lindberg, whose premieres will take place all along the world during the next four seasons. First of the commissions, to Arturo Márquez, will be premiered in México, USA, Japan and Spain along the 18/19 season.
Besides this project of commissions Pacho Flores will also play the absolute premieres of other works by composers as Daniel Freiberg, Arturo Sandoval, Christian Lindberg and Efraín Oscher, in places like the Nederlands, Argentina, Spain and Germany, respectively, that add to other recent premieres as Cantos y Revueltas, by Pacho Flores himself, with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia and Manuel Hernández-Silva on past January; the Trumpet Concerto by Giancarlo Castro with the Ulster Orchestra and Rafael Payare in February; or Preach, pour trompette et orchestre, by Alain Trudel, with the Orchestre Symphonique de Laval and Trudel himself at the baton, on past March.
Leo Rondón makes his debut with the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla to participate on 6 and 7 March in two concertante works of a markedly Latin character with Hernández-Silva and Pacho Flores, with whom he regularly collaborates. These works are Concerto Venezolano for trumpet and orchestra by Paquito D’Rivera, winner of a Latin Grammy, and Cantos y Revueltas. Fantasía Concertante for trumpet, Venezuelan cuatro and Orchestra, by the trumpeter himself, in whose recording for Deutsche Grammophon Leo also participates. The concerts will take place at the Teatro de la Maestranza at 20:00.
Leo comes from Poland to play his own Concierto del Mar, for Venezuelan cuatro with the Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra of Gdansk conducted by Christian Vásquez, and will soon be seen at the Auditori de Barcelona with the Banda Municipal de Barcelona again playing in Cantos y Revueltas conducted by Pascual Vilaplana. Previously he could also be seen with the Duisburger Philharmoniker conducted by Alondra de la Parra and this season he can still be seen again in Spain playing the Concierto del Mar with the Orquesta de Extremadura and Silva.
Following the premiere of his Concierto del Mar, Rondón is now completing the composition of a new concerto for four and orchestra entitled Concierto del Llano, which will be the second in a trilogy. He will also continue his work in the artistic organisation of the PAAX GNP Festival, chaired by Mexican conductor Alondra de la Parra, which will take place again in June 2025 in Mexico’s Riviera Maya. He continues to work with maestro Alexis Cárdenas and his quartet, and with a duo with French pianist Thomas Enhco, with whom he released an album together with Chilean tenor Emiliano González Toro, in homage to singer Violeta Parra. Known as Leo Rondón, Leonidas Rondón (Guama, Yaracuy, 1984), who was an outstanding podium participant in the Festival La Siembra del Cuatro in Venezuela, has collaborated with the Quatuor Debussy, Christina Pluhar’s L’Arpeggiata and the Mexican tenor Rolando Villazón. Also with orchestras such as the Arctic Philharmonic of Norway, Real Filharmonía de Galicia, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Orchestre National de l’Ile de France, Sinfónica de la Región de Murcia, Orquesta de Valencia, Sinfónica de Castilla y León, Orquesta de Extremadura, Sinfónica de Navarra, Sinfónica del Vallés or Filarmónica de Málaga. For years he organised, together with maestro Cristóbal Soto, the summer course Música Criolla Venezolana, a Venezuelan music teaching camp in the city of Mirecourt, France. He is currently working on his solo project, Leo Rondón Project.
