Perry So has kicked off his concert season with a busy September at the helm of the Sinfónica de Navarra and the New Haven Symphony, the two orchestras where he serves as principal conductor. The first event was the traditional concert in Pamplona’s Plaza del Castillo, which marks the start of the symphonic season in the Navarran capital and took place on 6 September at 8 pm. He then returns to the United States for the first concert of the New Haven Symphony season, which will take place at Woolsey Hall on 28 September at 3 p.m., with a programme that includes Holst’s The Planets and Tumblebird Contrails by composer Gabriella Smith. The first subscription programme with the Sinfónica de Navarra will be on 16 and 17 October in Pamplona and Tafalla respectively, in both cases at 7.30 pm, with a programme consisting of Prokofiev’s symphony concertante for cello, with Nicolas Alstaedt as soloist, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6. But between the two season openings, he will have time to go to the Wuppertal Opera to conduct a performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni and also to make a recording with the OSN on the IBS label.
Perry So was born in 1982 in Hong Kong, where he received his early training in piano, organ, violin, viola and composition. He graduated from Yale University with a degree in literature, specialising in Central European music and literature of the modernist period, during which time he founded an academic orchestra and conducted the university’s opera company. He studied conducting initially with James Sinclair and later with Gustav Meier at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. In 2008, Perry received First Prize and the Special Prize at the 5th International Prokofiev Conducting Competition in St Petersburg. Following this recognition, he was appointed Assistant Conductor and then Associate Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel Conducting Fellow at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, artistic collaborator with the Principality of Asturias Symphony Orchestra, and member of the Conducting Department at the Manhattan School of Music. He is currently music director of the Navarra Symphony Orchestra and the New Haven Symphony Orchestra.
In recent seasons, Perry So has made his debut with the San Francisco Symphony, as well as his operatic debut in Europe with the Royal Danish Opera and The Magic Flute. Notable performances include a tour of Italy with the Nuremberg Symphony and a seven-week tour of South Africa conducting three different orchestras, during which he conducted Verdi’s Requiem. Other debuts in recent years include appearances with the Cleveland and Minnesota Orchestras, the symphony orchestras of Navarra, Málaga, Tenerife, Nuremberg, Israel, New Zealand, Houston, Detroit, New Jersey and Shanghai, the London, Szezcin, Seoul and China Philharmonic Orchestras, the Residentie Orkest in The Hague and the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie in Koblenz. In 2013, he toured the Balkan Peninsula with the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra in the first series of cultural exchanges established after the break-up of Yugoslavia.
Perry So’s recording work encompasses a wide range of 20th-century British, French and Russian music with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the BBC Concert Orchestra, and his album of Barber and Korngold violin concertos with Alexander Gilman and the Cape Town Philharmonic received the Diapason d’Or in 2012. His wide-ranging musical interests include numerous world premieres on four continents, as well as the reintroduction of Renaissance and Baroque repertoire into symphonic programmes, particularly championing the works of Jean-Philippe Rameau. His work with young musicians has taken him to the Australian Youth Orchestra, the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, the Round Top Festival, the Manhattan School of Music, the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, and the Yale School of Music.
Marina Heredia presents En Libertad! El Camino de los Gitanos (In Freedom! The path of the gypsies) at the Palace of Charles V in the Alhambra of Granada, on September 18th, as part of the 1st Granada Flamenco Biennial, with the Granada City Orchestra conducted by José Trigueros, José Quevedo ‘Bolita’ on guitar and Paquito González on percussion. This is a double presentation, as the concert is accompanied by the launch of his new album, which revolves around this piece as its central work. En Libertad!, composed jointly by Joan Albert Amargós and José Quevedo, was commissioned by the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra, with which it premiered on June 28th and 29th, 2023, with Amargós himself conducting. It had its Spanish premiere in A Coruña on May 24th and 25th, 2024, with the Galicia Symphony Orchestra under the direction of José Trigueros, and it is also scheduled to be performed with the Castilla y León Symphony Orchestra in January 2026, again under the baton of Maestro Trigueros. Marina, who was at the New York Flamenco Festival on past March, is also scheduled to perform with the San Diego Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra in the United States, singing Falla’s El Amor Brujo, on both occasions conducted by Rafael Payare.
Marina Heredia is undoubtedly the most sought-after singer internationally for this repertoire. In recent seasons, she has appeared at the Konzerthaus and the Berlin Philharmonie, alongside the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra; the Pierre Boulez Hall in Berlin; the Laieszhalle of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg; the Lausitz Festival in Görlitz; the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival; the New York Flamenco Festival or the Cartagena International Music Festival.
She has sung with orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de Lille, the Orquestra Sinfônica da Casa da Música do Porto, the Rouen Opera, and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with whom she recorded El Amor Brujo under the baton of Pablo Heras-Casado and the production of La Fura del Baus for the Granada Festival under the baton of Manuel Hernández-Silva. She has also performed with the Castilla y León Symphony Orchestra and Thierry Fischer, the Galicia Symphony Orchestra and José Trigueros, the Navarra Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Perry So, the RTVE Symphony Orchestra under the direction, again, of Hernández-Silva, the Murcia Region Symphony Orchestra with Roberto Forés, and the North Macedonia Philharmonic with Christian Vásquez.
Marina Heredia will sing at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival next Saturday, August 2nd, accompanied by some of her regular collaborators: José Quevedo ‘Bolita’ on guitar and Roberto Jaén on percussion. Once again, they are special guests of Avi Avital and his Between Worlds Ensemble. The program features arrangements of classical compositions by Falla, Albéniz and Granados, along with flamenco and other popular music pieces in new arrangements created especially for the project, which was premiered at the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin in November 2022 and has been released by Deutsche Grammophon this past June 2025.
Mandolinist Avi Avital has long enjoyed crossing musical borders. Between Worlds is an exploration of different genres, cultures, and musical worlds: at the center of the project is the Between Worlds Ensemble, founded by Avital in 2014 and made up of ten classically trained musicians equally at home in non-classical repertoire. For each of the three Between Worlds programs, this core group has been joined by several artists or an ensemble representing a specific cultural and geographical region from around the world, in programs that include classical pieces as well as traditional and folk music in newly created arrangements. “The feeling of being at home in places that seem strange and even discovering aspects of oneself is an idea I find very moving,” says Avital. “That philosophy is at the heart of this project.” To open the series, Marina Heredia, one of the most fascinating voices in flamenco today, joins the Between Worlds Ensemble, alongside José Quevedo “Bolita” and Roberto Jaén in a program dedicated to the music of the Iberian Peninsula.
Marina Heredia has become the most sought-after singer internationally to perform repertoires that combine flamenco with classical music and other musical styles, both popular and folk, in which she moves like a fish in water. Among her most notable projects is En Libertad. El Camino de los Gitanos (In Freedom. The Way of the Gypsies), a new work by José Quevedo and Joan Albert Amargós that was commissioned by the Duisburger Philharmoniker, which premiered it in 2023. The piece was afterwards performed in Spain by the Galicia Symphony Orchestra in 2024, and is already scheduled for September 18th with the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, and in 2026 with the Castilla y León Symphony Orchestra. Marina’s upcoming engagements include invitations to sing Falla’s El Amor Brujo with the San Diego and Philadelphia orchestras.
Perry So conducts the Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal next Sunday and Monday, 10 and 11 May, in the Historische Stadthalle Wuppertal with a programme including Arvo Pärt’s Fratres, Stravinsky’s Symphony in three movements and Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 in C major, Op. 61. This is Perry’s second visit to Germany so far this year following his appearance before the Rheinische Philharmonie in Koblenz this past January when he conducted a very French programme with works by Saint-Saëns, Poulenc and Mozart’s Paris Symphony.
Perry So was born in 1982 in Hong Kong, where he received his early training in piano, organ, violin, viola and composition. He received a BA in literature from Yale University with a major in Central European music and literature of the modernist period, during which time he founded an academic orchestra and conducted the university’s opera company. He studied conducting initially with James Sinclair and later with Gustav Meier at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. In 2008 Perry was awarded First Prize and Special Prize at the 5th St. Petersburg Prokofiev International Conducting Competition. Following this recognition he was appointed Assistant Conductor and then Associate Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel Conducting Fellow at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Artistic Collaborator of the Principality of Asturias Symphony Orchestra, and a member of the Department of Conducting at the Manhattan School of Music. He is currently music director of the Sinfónica de Navarra and the New Haven Symphony Orchestra.
In recent seasons, Perry So has made his debut with the San Francisco Symphony, as well as his European operatic debut with the Royal Danish Opera and The Magic Flute. Highlights include a tour to Italy with the Nuremberg Symphony and a seven-week tour of South Africa conducting three different orchestras in Verdi’s Requiem. Other debuts in recent years include appearances with the Cleveland and Minnesota Orchestras, the symphony orchestras of Navarra, Malaga, Tenerife, Nuremberg, Israel, New Zealand, Houston, Detroit, New Jersey and Shanghai, the London, Szezcin, Seoul and China Philharmonics, the Residentie Orkest in The Hague and the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie in Koblenz. In 2013 he toured the Balkan Peninsula conducting the Zagreb Philharmonic in the first series of cultural exchanges established after the break-up of Yugoslavia.
Perry So’s work in the recording studio encompasses a wide range of 20th century British, French and Russian music with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the BBC Concert Orchestra, and his album of Barber and Korngold Violin Concertos with Alexander Gilman and the Cape Town Philharmonic received the Diapason d’Or in 2012. His wide-ranging musical interests include numerous world premieres on four continents, as well as the reintroduction of Renaissance and Baroque repertoire into symphonic programmes, notably championing the works of Jean-Philippe Rameau. His work with young musicians has taken him to the Australian Youth Orchestra, the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, the Round Top Festival, the Manhattan School of Music, the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts and the Yale School of Music.
Marina Heredia participates in the New York Flamenco Festival with a programme entitled De lo jondo a Lorca that includes a selection of poems and songs that Lorca immortalised in his works, mixing the intensity of flamenco with the poetic lyricism of the author. Accompanied by her inseparable guitarist José Quevedo ‘El Bolita’, Marina transports the audience to the deepest roots of Andalusian culture, reliving the legacy of the poet from Granada with every note and verse. The concert will take place on Friday 14 March in the Merkin Concert Hall of the Kaufman Music Center at 8pm. Marina has just had an outstanding presence at the Cartagena Music Festival in Colombia where he gave three concerts, two with the Castile and Leon Symphony Orchestra and Thierry Fisher with programmes covering works by Falla and Lorca as well as with his flamenco quintet.
Marina Heredia is definitely the most internationally demanded singer for this repertoire, just in the last two seasons she could be seen at the Konzerthaus and the Berlin Philharmonie with the Berlin Radio Symphony conducted by Pablo Heras Casado; the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, in the Laieszhalle of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, or the Lausitz Festival in Görlitz, and has sung with orchestras of the importance of the Chicago Symphony or San Francisco Symphony, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, of which she was resident artist and with which she premiered in Spain En Libertad!, a new work for cantaora and orchestra by José Quevedo and Joan Albert Amargós, commissioned and premiered by the Duisburger Philharmoniker.
Other important orchestras which Marina has sung with are the Orchestre National de Lille, Orquestra Sinfônica da Casa da Música do Porto, Ópera de Rouen, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with whom she recorded El Amor Brujo under the baton of Pablo Heras-Casado or the production by La Fura del Baus for the Granada Festival as well as with the Sinfónicas de Navarra under the baton of Perry So, Sinfónica de RTVE, Sinfónica de la Región de Murcia with Roberto Forés, North Macedonian Philharmonic with Christian Vásquez or Sinfónica de Castilla y León under the baton of José Trigueros and Thierry Fisher. Among the upcoming engagements it highlights the concert with the San Diego Symphony in the Rady Shell at Jacobs Park under the baton of Rafael Payare.
