Abraham Cupeiro, who recently toured the UK with some of the country’s leading orchestras, now returns to the island to perform with the Scottish BBC Symphony Orchestra in the Celtic Connections series alongside Finnish folk stars Frigg and conducted by Janne Nisonen. The concert will take place on 19 January at Glasgow’s City Hall at 19:30.
A builder and multi-instrumentalist, what characterises Abraham Cupeiro is the recovery of instruments lost in time and using them to create new sonorities and imbricate them in music that is alien to them. He studied trumpet at the RCSMM, and later completed a master’s degree in Early Music Performance at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. However, although he is classically trained, he has always been attracted to all kinds of music. Thus, from an early age he has been a member of folk, jazz and early music groups. As an instrumentalist, he stands out for being one of the few people who plays the Karnyx (Celtic trumpet from the Iron Age). He was recently invited to try out the Tintignac Karnyx, which is the only one that 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 in the Galician tradition: the corna. An instrument that his grandfather played and that 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 under the name Resonando en el Pasado (Resonating in the Past). Abraham recovers and builds different instruments, and performs with them from his own music to music of today, and mixes them with modern formations. These blends can be seen in his work Compromiscuo with Belarusian accordionist Vadzim Yukhnevich, as well as in works written especially for him such as Wladimir 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 that was recorded with the Filharmonía de Galicia on the Warner Classics label. After its premiere, it has been performed with different orchestras in Spain, Europe and America.
In 2018 Abraham released a new project: PANGEA, which was recorded in November 2019 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London at Abbey Road Studios, and was released in September 2020 on the Warner Classics label, and in 2024 he launched the recording of a new project, MYTHOS, again with the RPO, which was presented in Spain with the Oviedo Filarmonía and this season can be seen with the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada or the Sinfónica de Bilbao. Among the orchestras with which he has played are the Sinfónica de Galicia, Real Filharmonía de Galicia, Royal Philharmonic, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Filarmónica de Gran Canaria, Orquesta Sinfónica de Bilbao, Orchestre National de Bretagne, Kymi Sinfonietta, Vaasa City Orchestra, etc. He was requested by the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja for the project Les Adieux, at La Philharmonie in Berlin and Laeiszhalle in Hamburg among others. He has composed the soundtrack for the film Maria Solinha and collaborates with the 14th Street company of the Oscar-winning Hans Zimmer. He regularly collaborates in Adolfo Domínguez 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.
