Manuel Hernández-Silva returns to Pamplona to conduct Manon Lescaut, by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), in the Baluarte Lyrical Season with the collaboration of AGAO, Asociación Gayarre de Amigos de la Ópera. The performances will take place on February 5 and 7. Hernández-Silva will lead a first-rate cast with Ainhoa Arteta in the leading role of Manon Lescaut; Roberto Aronica as Renato des Grieux; José Antonio López, who plays Lescaut; Carlos Chausson as Geronte de Ravoir; and Pablo García-López in the role of Edmondo. The Navarra Symphony Orchestra, of which Hernández-Silva is Principal and Artistic Director, will be in the pit, and they will have the participation of the Lyric Choir of the Gayarre Friends of the Opera Association (AGAO).
A title much loved by Hernández-Silva, Manon Lescaut was Giacomo Puccini’s third opera and his first great success. Inspired by the homonymous novel by the Abbé Prévost, it is a very sensual and emotional work, faithful to the principles of verismo. It tells the tragic story of the courtesan Manon and the Chevalier Des Grieux. With the passionate and heartmoving music so characteristic of Puccini, the work has arias of undeniable beauty such as the famous ‘Sola, perduta, abbandonata’ and ‘Donna non vidi mai’.
Before this Manon Lescaut, Hernández-Silva had already conducted a concert version of Beethoven’s Fidelio at the opening of the OSN season, which he had previously done with great success at the Teatro Cervantes in Malaga in a production of the Teatro de la Maestranza with the stage direction of José Carlos Plaza and Berna Perles and César Gutiérrezin the main roles. Hernández-Silva also conducted Cosí fan tutte by Mozart in Málaga, as well as a still remembered production of Don Giovanni at the Gran Teatro de Córdoba, which he did later in a semi-staged version at the Quincena Musical in San Sebastián. Hernández-Silva recorded Haydn’s La vera costanza for the label Capriccio, with the WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln and singers such as Paul Armin Edelmann, Chen Reiss, Reiner Trost, etc.
Venezuelan conductor Christian Vásquez returns to Spain to lead the OSPA, Symphony Orchestra of the Principality of Asturias, in a program that includes Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, Grieg’s Piano Concerto with Vadim Kholodenko as soloist, and Brahms Symphony No. 3. The concerts will take place on February 11 and 12 at the Prince Felipe Auditorium in Oviedo and the Jovellanos Theater in Gijón, respectively.
Christian Vásquez has been Principal Guest Conductor of the Gävle Symphony Orchestra in Sweden and the Het Gelders Orkest in The Netherlands, as well as Principal Conductor of the Stavanger Symphony in Norway, and continues to lead the Teresa Carreño Symphony Orchestra in Venezuela. In the upcoming months his engagements will take him to four continents: Asia, Oceania, Europe and America. Vásquez has conducted important orchestras such as the philharmonic orchestras of Los Angeles, Rotterdam, Helsinki, Tokyo, Luxembourg, Arnhem, Turku and Poznan, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Danish Royal Orchestra, Residentie Orkest, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Camerata Salzburg, Royal Northern Sinfonia, National Arts Center Orchestra of Ottawa, Warsaw Beethoven Festival Orchestra, Vienna, Prague, and Norway Radio Symphony Orchestras, RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Singapore, New Jersey, and State of Russia Symphony orchestras, Estonian National Orchestra, and the Norwegian and Danish National Operas. He also appears on the album Cantar by Pacho Flores with the Berlin Konzerthausorchester.
Christian Vásquez, who has already conducted the Galicia Symphony Orchestra, the Castilla y León Symphony Orchestra and the Gran Canaria Philharmonic Orchestra in Spain, appears for the first time with the Orchestra of the Principality of Asturias and will soon make his debut with the Navarra Symphony Orchestra, which had to be cancelled last season due to the lockdown declared to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hernández-Silva and Pacho Flores will premiere Salseando, the new trumpet concerto by the US-based Puerto Rican composer Roberto Sierra. It will be next December 17 at the Víctor Villegas Auditorium together with the Orquesta Sinfónica de la Región de Murcia. In addition to Salseando, Hernández-Silva will also conduct Sibelius’s Symphony No. 5. This premiere is part of the ambitious project of shared commissions for new trumpet concerts to outstanding composers, that Pacho Flores has started and managed together with ACM Concerts and that has involved orchestras from all over the world as well as important conductors such as Hernández-Silva, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Domingo Hindoyan, Lucas Macías, etc.
This project by Pacho Flores is being carried out in several rounds, the first two of which are being completed with important composers such as Arturo Márquez, Paquito D’Rivera and Roberto Sierra on the one hand; and Efraín Oscher, Christian Lindberg and Daniel Freiberg on the other. Contacts for a third round have been made and will be announced in due course. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic participated in the commission of Salseando with its new principal conductor, Domingo Hindoyan; the Orquesta Sinfónica de la Región de Murcia will be led by Hernández-Silva; the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, with a conductor to be determined; and the Orchestre National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine, which will close the series of premieres, will also count on Hernández-Silva as conductor.
Composer Roberto Sierra
The first of these new concertos to complete its series of premieres was Concierto de otoño by Arturo Márquez, which Pacho Flores premiered throughout 2018 with the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico under Carlos Miguel Prieto; the Tucson Symphony Orchestra with José Luis Gómez; the Hyogo PAC Orchestra of Japan under Michiyoshi Inoue; and the Oviedo Filarmonía under Lucas Macías. After the committed premieres, Pacho Flores is playing this piece all around the world, highlighting the version by Hernández-Silva with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia.
D. Freiberg, A. Márquez, P. D’Rivera, P. Flores and C. M. Prieto during the recording of Mestizo for Deutsche Grammophon
After having been premiered by the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería with Carlos Miguel Prieto, D’Rivera’s Concerto Venezolano saw its calendar affected by the pandemic, as Pacho Flores himself, now waiting for premieres with the Valencia Orchestra and Vicent Alberola; the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Domingo Hindoyan; and the San Diego Symphony under Rafael Payare. Season 2020/21 will see the premieres of Christian Lindberg’s concert by the Real Filharmonía de Galicia with Paul Daniel, and the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra with the composer himself on the podium. More Lindberg as well as Freiberg premieres are planned for future seasons, including the Arctic Philharmonic with Hernández-Silva or the Swedish Chamber Orchestra with Lindberg, among others.
Marina Heredia is playing again Candelas, the character in El Amor Brujo by Manuel de Falla, this time with the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada under the baton of the Andalusian conductor Lucía Marín. In recent times Marina Heredia has become the most important interpreter of El Amor Brujo internationally, after singing this work together with some of the most important orchestras in the world such as the Chicago Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony or the Chamber Orchestra of Lausanne, to mention just a few, and after recording it for the label Harmonía Mundi with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under Pablo Heras-Casado.
As a result of the extension of the COVID-19 prevention measures in Andalusia announced on 22 November, which limit theatres, auditoriums and concert halls to a 40% of their capacity up to a maximum of 200 people, the concerts scheduled for 26 and 27 November at the Auditorio Manuel de Falla will be postponed to another date. However, the Ciudad de Granada Orchestra, in order to keep in contact with its audience, has decided to record the concert in an empty hall and broadcast it on the orchestra’s YouTube channel on Friday, 27 November at 8:00 p.m. The program includes El Amor Brujo as well as the Suite No. 1 from El Sombrero de Tres Picos, also by Manuel de Falla.
Marina Heredia’s most recent performance of El Amor Brujo took place in France with the Orchestra of Lille led by maestro Josep Vicent. New invitations will take her back to France to play this same role later this season. Upcoming events include the presentation of the cantaora’s new album.
Christian Lindberg and Pacho Flores have released a new recording for the label European Grammophon featuring arrangements of Bach’s Inventions for trumpet and trombone, which will be available on Spotify since October 21. This is not the first recording collaboration between Flores and Lindberg, who released the album FRACTALES for Deutsche Grammophon at the end of 2018 together with the Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra. This recording included, among other concerts of the trumpet repertoire such as those by Haydn or Arutunian, the piece Akban Bunka, composed by Lindberg himself, which Pacho has performed all over the world. The album awarded Pacho the gold medal in the category of best instrumentalists at the Global Music Awards.
The Swedish composer, trombonist and conductor is writing a new concert for trumpet dedicated to Pacho Flores. The composition, which will soon be recorded, is a joint commission by various international orchestras such as the Real Filharmonía de Galicia in Spain, conducted by Paul Daniel, the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra in Turkey and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, both led by Lindberg himself. In March 2019, Pacho Flores and Christian Lindberg, accompanied on that occasion by trombonist Ximo Vicedo and the RTVE Symphony Orchestra, participated in the world premiere of Un Sueño Morisco, a double concert for trumpet and trombone.
Christian Vásquez will conduct the Gran Canaria Philharmonic Orchestra on 5 and 6 November at the Auditorio Alfredo Kraus in Las Palmas in a program which consists on Schumann’s Genoveva Overture and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5. This will be Christian Vásquez’s second visit to the Gran Canaria Philharmonic after his celebrated concert last September 2019, in which he conducted a varied program of Latin American and European music. The Venezuelan conductor has already worked with important Spanish orchestras such as the Galicia and the Castilla y León Symphony Orchestras, and he will soon make his debut with the Orchestra of the Principality of Asturias.
Internationally, Christian Vásquez has been Principal Conductor of the Stavanger Symphony in Norway, as well as Principal Guest Conductor of the Gävle Symphony in Norway and the Het Gelders Orkest in the Netherlands. He is also to this day Principal Conductor of the Teresa Carreño Symphony Orchestra in Venezuela. Christian Vásquez has also worked with other ensembles such as the Philharmonia Orchestra, Residentie Orkest, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Salzburg Camerata, Russian State Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Center Orchestra (Ottawa), Los Angeles Philharmonic, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Berlin Konzerthausorchester, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Warsaw Beethoven Festival Orchestra or Turku Philharmonic.
In recent seasons, Christian has made important debuts with orchestras such as the Luxembourg, Rotterdam, Poznan, Turku and Helsinki Philarmonics, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Estonian National Orchestra, Royal Danish Orchestra, Norway Radio Orchestra or the RTE National Symphony Orchestra in Ireland. After this visit to the Gran Canaria Philharmonic, Christian Vásquez will travel to Italy for his debut with the Sicilian Symphony Orchestra. Other engagements, both in Spain as well as in Europe and America, will be announced soon.
