Manuel Hernández-Silva and Serbian violinist Robert Lakatoš meet again, this time with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia, to offer Wieniawski’s Concerto No. 1 along with the overture A Life for the Tsar, by Glinka, and Kalinnikov’s Symphony No. 1. The concerts will take place at the Centro Cultural Abanca in Vigo and the Auditorio de Galicia in Santiago de Compostela on March 16 and 17, respectively. Hernández-Silva and Lakatoš had already performed Shostakovich’s Concerto No. 1 together with the Navarre Symphony Orchestra and the Malaga Philharmonic. Other visits by Lakatoš to Spain involved James Judd and the RTVE Orchestra with Korngold’s violin concert, and Nicholas Milton and the Navarra Symphony with the Serenade for violin, strings and percussion by Leonard Bernstein.
Robert Lakatoš has won numerous international awards, including first prizes at the Pablo Sarasate Competition (Pamplona, Spain, 2015), Mary Smart Concerto Competition (New York, 2013), and Societe Generale Serbia (Belgrade, 2009), as well as second prizes at Jeunesses Musicales Romania (Bucharest, 2012) and Andrea Postacchini (Fermo, Italy, 2012). Robert Lakatoš develops his concert career as a soloist and chamber musician performing in Europe, Israel and the United States. As a soloist, he has appeared with numerous orchestras including the Spanish RTVE Orchestra, Navarra Symphony Orchestra, Malaga Philharmonic, Minas Gerais Philharmonic, Krakow Philharmonic, Orquesta Sinfónica de la UAN (Mexico), Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra, New York Summit Festival Orchestra, RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, Vojvodina Symphony Orchestra and the Janáček Camerata. So far, he has collaborated with conductors such as Philip Greenberg, Fabio Mechetti, Gabriel Feltz, Manuel Hernández-Silva, Nicholas Milton, James Judd, James Tuggle, Lior Shambadal and Antoni Wit. He has made recordings for radio and television in his country and abroad and holds the position of Violin Professor at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, where he studied and was awarded as Best Young Artist in 2016 by the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina and the Vojvodina Academy of Arts and Sciences. Robert plays on a 1709 Stradivari violin from the collection of bow maker Vladimir Radosavljevic, whose bow he also uses.
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.
After a spectacular concert at the Úbeda Festival in which he conducted the ORTVE orchestra with Marina Heredia and Cañizares, Manuel Hernández-Silva begins an intense symphonic season by leading the ADDA Simfònica from Alicante, the Cordoba Symphony Orchestra and—yet again—the ORTVE. With the ADDA orchestra he will conduct violist Isabel Villanueva in a program that includes Cantos de Ordesa, a concert for viola and orchestra by the recently deceased Antón García Abril, along with Vasili Kalinnikov’s Symphony No. 1 in G Minor. He will then lead the ORTVE orchestra in Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, and the Córdoba orchestra in Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 3 in D Major, D. 200 and Kalinnikov’s symphony.
Other outstanding commitments of this season include the Valencia Orchestra, where Manuel Hernández-Silva will conduct Pacho Flores and Leo Rondón at the Spanish premiere of Concierto Venezolano by Paquito D’Rivera, Cantos y Revueltas, by Flores himself, and Sibelius’s Symphony No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 39; the Real Filharmonía de Galicia, where he will conduct a Russian program including the overture A Life for the Tsar, by Mijaíl Glinka, Henryk Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in F sharp minor with Robert Lakatoš as soloist, and once again Kalinnikov’s Symphony No.1; the Orquesta Sinfónica de la Región de Murcia in Spain, where he will premiere Manuel Moreno Buendía’s Stabat Mater with the mezzosoprano María José Montiel and the baritone Javier Franco; the Gran Canaria Philharmonic, again with Pacho Flores and Leo Rondón; the National Symphony of Chile; the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, in a Spanish program that includes Rafael Aguirre (guitar), Beatriz Díaz (soprano) and César Augusto Gutiérrez (tenor) as soloists; or the Orchestre National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine for two new French premieres with Pacho Flores: the concerts Salseando, by Roberto Sierra, and Concierto Venezolano by Paquito D’Rivera, together with Silvestre Revueltas’s Redes, and Estancia by Alberto Ginastera.
Manuel Hernández-Silva has been Principal Guest Conductor of the Simón Bolívar Orchestra and Musical and Artistic Director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de la Región de Murcia, Orquesta de Córdoba, Malaga Philharmonic and Navarre Symphony Orchestra.
