Christian Vásquez returns to the Orchester Pasdeloup in Paris. After his debut last January 2023 with the orchestra at the Paris Philharmonie, in which he conducted works by Beethoven and Dvořàk, he was again invited to conduct two concerts in the current season, the first of which took place last November 11, again at the Grande Salle Pierre Boulez of the Philharmonie, with a program titled South American Tour that included works by Gershwin, Lecuona, Gardel, Bonfiglio and Márquez, with pianist Dina Bensaïd and Patricio Bonfiglio & El Sindicato Milonguero as soloists. The second of these concerts will take place at La Seine Musicale next Sunday, April 28, 2024, and with a totally different program that includes works by French authors such as Lalo, Overture to Le Roi d’Ys, and Saint-Saëns, Danse Macabre, Grieg’s piano concerto with François Dumont as soloist and Stravinsky’s The Firebird.
This is being a period of intense activity that includes several premieres, such as the new trumpet concerto by the Colombian-Finnish composer Tuomas Turriago, with the Tampere Orchestra, with Pacho Flores as soloist, then he conducted the Galician Symphony with the Fuga Criolla, by Juan Bautista Plaza, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2, and the absolute premiere of the new clarinet concerto by Pacho Flores, dedicated to Juan Ferrer, who served as soloist, and whom he wiññ also later conduct with the Orchestra of the Region of Murcia, next to La Alborada del Gracioso, by Ravel, and Pictures at an Exhibition, by Musorgski. The Clarinet Concerto by Pacho Flores is a shared commission between the aforementioned orchestras of Galicia and Murcia, and the Extremadura Orchestra.
A little later and with the Tenerife Symphony, Christian will conduct the European premiere of the Concierto del Mar for Venezuelan Cuatro and Orchestra, with the composer himself as soloist, along with works by Gabriela Ortiz, Evencio Castellanos and Alberto Ginastera.
Abraham Cupeiro presents PANGEA with the Oldenburgisches Staatsorchester under the baton of maestro Antonio Planelles Gallego next Sunday, April 28. This is a family activity that will take place in a double session at 11:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., in the Großes Haus of the Oldenburgisches Staatstheater. PANGEA is the second album by Abraham Cupeiro, recorded with the London Symphony under the direction of Dimas Ruiz. He has recently presented a new project, MYTHOS, at the Teatro Campoamor in Oviedo together with the Oviedo Filarmonía and directed by Fernando Briones. MYTHOS is his third and last album to date, also recorded with London Symphony and Dimas Ruiz.
About 200 million years ago on our planet there was a single gigantic continent: Pangea. This began to separate and over time gave rise to the different current continents as we know them. The journey we propose with this concert is the union through music of the different parts of the planet. Pangea is an educational and entertaining show that brings us closer to other cultures, with original music by Abraham Cupeiro and María Ruiz.
During the concert they will sound from southern Oceania with the echoes of its conch shells, to the mysterious Chinese mountains that the sound of the Hulusi draws with its melismatic melodies; great plains like those of North America, jungles like those of South America, the Peule flute of Senegal, the Bulgarian Bagpipe, the defiant Zurna and the ancient shepherd’s horns will sew the dress that will once again unite our land. With Pangea, Abraham Cupeiro proposes a trip that is a hymn to the cultural diversity of our planet.
Christian Vásquez returns to the Galicia Symphony Orchestra on April 18 and 19 to conduct a program that includes the absolute premiere of Aurea, a clarinet concerto composed by Pacho Flores and dedicated to Juan Ferrer, who will also perform as soloist. This concert is the result of a joint commission by the Galicia Symphony Orchestra, the Extremadura Orchestra, and the Orchestra of the Region of Murcia, whose premieres will take place on April 25 and 26, and May 31 and June 1, respectively. The program in Galicia also includes the Fuga Criolla, by Juan Bautista Plaza, and the Symphony No. 2 in C minor, Op. 17, Little Russia, by Tchaikovsky.
Christian Vásquez was born in Caracas in 1984, he began his music studies as a violinist and member of the renowned musical education program ‘El Sistema’. In 2006 he began his studies in orchestral conducting under the tutelage of maestro José Antonio Abreu, and that same year he was named musical director of the José Félix Ribas Youth Symphony Orchestra, in the state of Aragua. HHe was a Dudamel fellow during the season 2009/10. Following his debut with the Gävle Symphony Orchestra in October 2009, one of his first appearances in Europe, Christian Vásquez was appointed Principal Guest Conductor, a position he held between 2010 and 2013. In 2010 he was also named Music Director of the Teresa Carreño Symphony Orchestra from Venezuela, and continues at the helm since 2017, when the
orchestra changed its name to Juan José Landaeta Symphony Orchestra. Christian Vásquez became Principal Conductor of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra at the beginning of the 2013/14 season, thus inaugurating an initial four-year mandate that would be extended for two more years until 2019. In the 2015/16 season he became Principal Guest Conductor of the Het Gelders Orkest (Arnhem Symphony Orchestra), beginning his tenure with a tour of the Netherlands. He was recently also named associate director of the Simón Bolívar Symphony.
Juan Ferrer is one of the most versatile and active Spanish clarinetists of his generation and the first Spaniard to be part of the juries of prestigious competitions such as the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, Ghent, Versailles, Competition for Asia and Oceania in Taipei (Taiwan), or Carlino (Italy), in which he has also offered recitals and master classes, a pedagogical work that he carries out with students from all over the world and in universities in Europe and Asia. This activity has recently been endorsed by his invitation to participate as a professor at the Simón Bolívar Foundation with three annual meetings starting with the 2017-18 season. An artist of the Buffet-Crampon Paris and Vandoren Paris brand, Ferrer is part of the Galicia Symphony Orchestra, of which he has been principal clarinet since 1994, although his artistic activity has led him to offer concerts in China, Taiwan, Switzerland, France, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Brazil, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Argentina and Spain, both as a soloist and in recitals as well as with chamber groups such as the Untía Trio, the Siglo XX Instrumental Group or the OSG Soloist Quintet, of the who is a member. He has performed as a guest with the Leipzig Radio Orchestra, the Liceu Orchestra of Barcelona, the Palau de les Arts of Valencia, the National Orchestra of Catalonia or the RTVE Orchestra, among many others, and has worked under the orders of some of the most prestigious batons: Gustavo Dudamel, Lorin Maazel, Daniel Harding, Sir Neville Marriner, Osmo Vänska, Guennadi Rozdestvenski, Peter Maag, James Conlon, Jesús López Cobos, Stanislaw Scrowaczewski, Dima Slobodeniouk, Gianandrea Noseda, Christoph Eschenbach, Juanjo Mena or Alberto Zedda. Juan Ferrer is a Professor at the Alfonso X El Sabio University and works regularly with the youth orchestras of Galicia, Euskadi, Catalonia or Canarias. He teaches in Spain, France, China, Taiwan, Italy, Portugal, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Paraguay, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Belgium, Russia, Argentina, in addition to participating in various editions of the Ibero-American Clarinet Academy in Castelo de Paiva ( Portugal). He has recorded an album with the pianist Daniel Del Pino with works dedicated to him by internationally renowned authors, such as Salvador Brotóns, Fernado Buide, Eduardo Soutullo, Karolis Biveinis, Octavio Vázquez, Wladimir Rosinskij and Juan Durán.
Christian Vásquez conducts the Tampere Philharmonic in a program that includes the absolute premiere of the new trumpet concerto by Tuomas Turriago, commissioned by the orchestra itself from the Colombian-Finnish composer and which will feature the Venezuelan trumpeter Pacho Flores as soloist. The concert, which is completed with Fandangos by Roberto Sierra, Glosa Sinfónica Margariteña, by Inocente Carreño, and Concierto de Otoño by Arturo Márquez, will take place next Friday, April 5 at 7:00 p.m. at the Tampere Hall.
Christian Vásquez was born in Caracas in 1984, he began his music studies as a violinist and member of the renowned musical education program ‘El Sistema’. In 2006 he began his studies in orchestral conducting under the tutelage of maestro José Antonio Abreu, and that same year he was named Music Director of the José Félix Ribas Youth Symphony, in the state of Aragua. He was a Dudamel scholarship recipient during the 2009/10 season. Following his debut with the Gävle Symphony Orchestra in October 2009, one of his first appearances in Europe, Christian Vásquez was appointed its Principal Guest Conductor, a position he held between 2010 and 2013. In 2010 he was also named Music Director of the Teresa Carreño Symphony Orchestra from Venezuela, and has continued to lead it since 2017, when it changed its name to Orquesta Juan Jose Landaeta. Christian Vásquez became Principal Conductor of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra at the beginning of the 2013/14 season, thus inaugurating an initial four-year mandate that would be extended for two more years until 2019. In the 2015/16 season he became Principal Guest Conductor of the Het Gelders Orkest (Arnhem Symphony Orchestra), beginning his tenure with a tour of the Netherlands. He was recently also named associate director of the Simón Bolívar Symphony.
Tuomas Turriago (1979) is a Finnish composer, pianist and conductor of Colombian origin. Since 2004 he has served as an accompanying senior lecturer at the Tampere University of Applied Sciences. Turriago is a founding member and director of the Tampere Chamber Opera Association. He has conducted the City Orchestras of Vaasa, Seinäjoki and Mikkeli, and TampereRaw, the Tampere Chamber Orchestra and the Brass Band of the Tampere Philharmonic.
Perry So returns in the middle of the season to the podium of the Navarra Symphony, where he is Music and Artistic Director, to face a double program that he will offer in the usual subscription series at the Baluarte Auditorium in Pamplona on Thursday, February 29, and in the Auditorium of the Palacio Euskalduna in Bilbao, within the program of the Musika/Música Festival, on Sunday, March 3. In both programs the Swedish soprano Camila Tilling acts as soloist, in the first, which is titled The Voice of the Earth, she will provide her voice to Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, which will be preceded by the absolute premiere of the work Climate Change, by Vicent Egea, commissioned by the Baluarte Foundation; in the second, as the protagonist of Francis Poulenc’s Stabat Mater, preceded by Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 6.
Perry So began his journey as Music and Artistic Director of the Navarra Symphony in the 2022/23 season, and starting next season he will combine with his new responsibility as Music Director of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, the city that hosts the University from Yale, one of the most prestigious in the world and where Perry earned a degree in Comparative Literature.
Perry So has worked with the orchestras of Cleveland and Minnesota, the symphonies of Houston, Detroit, New Jersey, Nürenberg, Israel and Shanghai, the Chinese Philharmonic, Residentie Orkest of The Hague and the Szezecin and Zagreb philharmonics. He has been a frequent guest at Walt Disney Hall and the Hollywood Bowl as a Dudamel Conducting Fellow at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He led the Hong Kong Philharmonic with Lang Lang in celebrating the 15th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China at the close of his four-year term as Associate Conductor. In Spain he has conducted the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra, Malaga Philharmonic, Navarra Symphony, Murcia Region Symphony and Asturias Symphony.
He received First Prize and Special Prize at the 5th International Prokofiev Conducting Competition in St. Petersburg. He has recorded extensively with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the BBC Concert Orchestra. His recording of the Barber and Korngold violin concertos with Alexander Gilman and the Cape Town Philharmonic was awarded the Diapason D’Or in 2012. Known for the enormous range of repertoire he conducts, including numerous world premieres on four continents, he has conducted productions of Cosí fan tutte, The Magic Flute, The Turn of the Screw, Giulio Cesare, Gianni Schicchi, Eugene Oneguin or Die Fledermaus. He has been an assistant to Edo de Waart, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gustavo Dudamel, Lorin Maazel and John Adams.
