Abraham Cupeiro is touring the UK as a soloist with orchestras including the Welsh National Opera Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Manchester Camerata, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the London Symphony, conducted by Anthony Gabriele. From Esk Film, in association with Netflix and Silverback Films, comes a new immersive natural history concert experience: Life on Our Planet in Concert, by composer Lorne Balfe, featuring highlights from the entire series alongside an incredible live soundtrack. Life on Our Planet is a ground-breaking new 8-part series created by Silverback Films in association with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television. Narrated by Academy Award®-winner Morgan Freeman, it’s the story of life’s epic battle to conquer and survive on planet Earth.
A builder and multi-instrumentalist, Abraham Cupeiro’s work is characterised by the recovery of instruments lost in time, using them to create new sonorities and integrate them into music that is alien to them. He studied trumpet at the RCSMM and later obtained a Master’s degree in Early Music Performance from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Although classically trained, he has always been attracted to all kinds of music. From a young age he has been a member of folk, jazz and early music groups.
As an instrumentalist, Abraham stands out as one of the few people to play the Karnyx (Celtic war trumpet from the Iron Age). He has recently been invited to try out the Tintignac Karnyx, the only one to have appeared in its entirety in 2004. He has rescued from oblivion instruments rooted in classical culture, such as the Greek aulos and the Roman cornu. He is also the promoter of an ancestral instrument of Galician tradition: the corna. This instrument was played by his grandfather and appears in the illuminations of Alfonso X. His interest in organology has led him to build up a collection of more than 200 instruments from all over the world and from different periods. It is a collection that he teaches in the form of a concert monologue called Resonando en el Pasado (Resonating in the Past). Abraham recovers and builds different instruments and uses them to play from his own music to contemporary music, mixing them with modern formations.
These blends can be seen in his work Compromiscuo with the Belarusian accordionist Vadzim Yukhnevich, as well as in works written especially for him, such as Vladimir Rosinsky’s Concierto Misterio with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia. Other composers who have written for Abraham include Bernd Redman, Enrique Rueda and Mark Pogolski. Os Sons Esquecidos (The Forgotten Sounds) is a project recorded with the Filharmonía de Galicia for Warner Classics. After its premiere, it was performed with different orchestras in Spain, Europe and America.
In 2018 Abraham premieres a new project: PANGEA, recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London at Abbey Road Studios in November 2019 and released in September 2020 on the Warner Classics label. Among the orchestras with which he has performed are the Sinfónica de Galicia, the Real Filharmonía de Galicia, the Royal Philharmonic, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Filarmónica de Gran Canaria, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Bilbao, the Orchestre National de Bretagne, the Kymi Sinfonietta and the Vaasa City Orchestra. In 2024 he began recording a new project, MYTHOS, again with the RPO, which was premiered in Spain with the Oviedo Filarmonia.
He was called by the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja for the project Les Adieux, among others at La Philharmonie in Berlin and the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg. He composed the soundtrack for the film Maria Solinha and has worked with Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer’s 14th Street company. He regularly participates in Adolfo Domínguez’s fashion shows with live performances. He also works for the science outreach project Neuston 3, which aims to raise awareness of the importance of the ocean in our lives. He has been commissioned to compose and record for TV and film shows including Netflix’s Life on our Planet, Prime Video’s The Wheel of Time and Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II.
