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.