Manuel Hernández-Silva makes yet another debut with a French national orchestra, this time the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, after his debut last June with the Orchestre National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine. Just arrived from the US after conducting two concerts with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, in which he conducted the American premiere of works by Manuel Moreno Buendía and Roberto Sierra, Manuel Hernández-Silva will lead the orchestra in five concerts that will take place in Nantes and the Loire region between 4 and 12 March. In addition to the absolute premieres of Gonzalo Grau and Gabriel Sivak, commissioned by the ONPL, the program also includes works by Saint-Saëns, Piazzolla, Ravel and Aldemaro Romero, with the violinist Alexis Cárdenas and his quartet as soloists.
After his return to France, Hernández-Silva will debut the following week with the Norwegian Arctic Philharmonic in Bodø and Tromsø, where he will once again conduct several premieres. Two works by Pacho Flores will be World premieres: Musas y resuello, originally conceived for Brass Ensemble, and Cantos y Revueltas, for trumpet, Venezuelan cuatro and strings in their original composition; as well as the Norwegian premiere of Historias de Flores y Tangos, trumpet concerto by Daniel Freiberg. This piece, along with works by other prominent composers such as Arturo Márquez, Roberto Sierra, Paquito D’Rivera, Efraín Oscher, Gabriela Ortiz or Christian Lindberg, is part of the project of shared commissions for new trumpet concertos promoted by Pacho Flores, in which Hernández-Silva has a fundamental role participating in up to five premieres (D’Rivera, Sierra, Freiberg, Oscher and Ortiz) and further renditions of these and other concertos.
Right after this, Manuel Hernández-Silva will travel to Argentina to conduct the opening concert of the symphonic season of the Buenos Aires Philharmonic at the Teatro Colón, in a program that includes Brahms’s Violin Concerto with Frank Peter Zimmermann and his Symphony No. 1. Back in Spain, he will spend two weeks in A Coruña for his debut with the Galician Symphony Orchestra, with the World premiere of Altar de Bronce, Gabriela Ortiz’s trumpet concerto, Paquito D’Rivera’s Concerto Venezolano, whose Spanish premiere he conducted with the Valencia Orchestra last February 2022, and Vassili Kalinnikov’s Symphony No. 1. Along with this debut, he will conduct another concert with the Galician Youth Symphony Orchestra, again with Pacho Flores as soloist, in a program that includes the Concierto de Otoño by Arturo Márquez, Albares, a concert for flugelhorn by Flores himself, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4. Later commitments will take him to Colombia, Argentina, Chile, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Poland, Singapore, etc.
Hernández-Silva and Pacho Flores meet once again, this time together with the Tucson Symphony, to offer the US premiere of Salseando, the trumpet concerto that Roberto Sierra wrote for Pacho. Commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, Symphony Orchestra of the Region of Murcia in Spain, and Orchestre National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine, Hernández-Silva himself was in charge of its Spanish and French premieres with the latter two. Boceto Sinfónico, by maestro Manuel Moreno Buendía, will also be premiered in the US, and the program will be completed with the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, by Bernstein, and Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy.
The history of collaborations between Hernández-Silva and Pacho Flores is so long that it would occupy several pages, but due to their relevance it is worth noting the World premieres of Cantos y Revueltas, by Pacho Flores himself, or Danzas Latinas, by Efraín Oscher, both with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia; the aforementioned premiere of Salseando, by Sierra, with the Symphony Orchestra of the Region of Murcia and the National Symphony of Bordeaux-Aquitaine; the premiere of the Concerto Venezolano by Paquito D’Rivera with the Orquesta de València; and the upcoming premieres of Historias de Flores y Tangos, by Daniel Freiberg, with the Arctic Philharmonic of Norway next March, and Altar de Bronce, trumpet concert by Gabriela Ortiz, with the Sinfónica de Galicia next April. Hernández-Silva is also responsible for conducting the fourth album by Pacho Flores for Deutsche Grammophon, entitled Cantos y Revueltas, together with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia, which also includes the participation of Leo Rondón as a cuatrista.
In Spain, Hernández-Silva and Pacho Flores have already played together with the aforementioned Real Filharmonía, Región de Murcia and Valencia orchestras, as well as with the Málaga Philharmonic, the Navarra Symphony, the Gran Canaria Philharmonic and the Extremadura Orchestra, and will soon have a double performance with the Sinfónica de Galicia.
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 making his debut with the Sinfónica de Baleares in Spain and appearing with the Sinfónica de Navarra, where he is Music and Artistic Director, at the Auditorio Nacional in Madrid within the Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid subscription series, Perry So returns to the US to conduct the Tucson Symphony on February 4 and 5. The program consists of Luigi Dallapiccola’s Piccola Musica Notturna, Schumann’s piano concerto with Michelle Cann as soloist, and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4, Italiana.
Perry So was born in 1982 in Hong Kong, where he received his early musical training in piano, organ, violin, viola, and composition. He received a BA in Comparative Literature from Yale University with a concentration 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 at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore under the tutelage of teacher Gustav Meier and in 2008 he received the First Prize and the Special Prize at the 5th Edition of the Prokofiev International 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 and artistic collaborator of the Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias, and is also a member of the Orchestra Conducting Department of the Manhattan School of Music. Since the 2022/23 season, he is Music and Artistic Director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra.
Present in concert halls on five continents, Perry So has recently made his debut with the San Francisco Symphony, his European operatic debut at the Royal Danish Opera with The Magic Flute, and his American debut at the Yale Opera with Eugene Onegin. Outstanding performances include a tour of Italy with the Nuremberg Symphony, a seven-week tour of South Africa leading three different orchestras in which he conducted Verdi’s Requiem in Cape Town for the South African National Arts Festival, or his return to the podium of the San Francisco Symphony. He has had a long-standing collaboration with the Royal Danish Theater and the Royal Danish Orchestra both in the concert hall and in the opera and ballet pit. He has been a frequent guest at Walt Disney Hall and the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles and in 2013 he toured the Balkans leading the Zagreb Philharmonic in the first series of cultural exchanges established after the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Other debuts in recent years include appearances with the Cleveland and Minnesota Orchestras, the Navarra, Málaga, Tenerife, Nuremberg, Israel, New Zealand, Houston, Detroit, New Jersey and Shanghai Symphony Orchestras, the London, Szezcin, Seoul and China Philharmonics, the Residentie Orkest of The Hague and the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie of Koblenz. His work in the recording studio spans 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 January 2012. His broad musical interests include numerous World premieres on four continents, as well as reintroducing Renaissance and Baroque repertoire into symphony programs, most notably 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. Perry, his wife Anna and their daughter Caroline divide their time between Boston, Saint Paul, where Anna is Professor of History of Science at the University of Minnesota, and Pamplona.
Christian Vásquez returns to the Opéra National de Paris to assist Gustavo Dudamel in the rehearsals and performances of Tristan and Isolde that are taking place during the months of December, January and February, and will return again in April this year to conduct various ballet performances. Meanwhile he also appeared last week with the Orchestre Pasdeloup at the Philharmonie de Paris with which he got extraordinary reviews and immediately received two new invitations to return again in April this season as well as at the beginning of the next season.
The Orchestre Pasdeloup is the oldest active French orchestra. After finishing his musical studies, Jules Pasdeloup founded the Society of Young Artists in 1852, which recruited its musicians from among the students of the Conservatoire and offered its concerts at the Salle Herz. Encouraged by the results, Jules Pasdeloup created a new orchestra consisting on the best musicians and started to offer the “Concerts Populaires” on October 27, 1861 at the Cirque Napoléon on boulevard des Filles-du-Calvaire, intended for an audience hitherto excluded from musical evenings, and whose success was immediate and considerable. By founding the “Popular Concerts”, Jules Pasdeloup gave birth to a new concert form that quickly experienced many variations throughout France and also abroad. The “People’s Concert” became a true institution that played a decisive role in creating new audiences by introducing the German repertoire but also exerting a positive influence on French symphonic production.
After this long period in Paris and before returning to the Opéra de Paris to conduct the orchestra in performances of the dance company, Christian will lead the Baltic Philharmonic in Poland together with the violinist Robert Lakatoš and will spend several weeks in Venezuela working with EL SISTEMA orchestras, especially the Juan José Landaeta Orchestra, of which he is musical director. After that second period at the Opéra de Paris, Christian will return to Latin America as he will visit Colombia and Mexico before finishing off the season in Switzerland.
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