Christian Vásquez made his debut last year 2021 at the Tongyeong International Festival in South Korea conducting two concerts with the Festival Orchestra and two soloists such as Bomsori Kim and Camille Thomas and was immediately invited to conduct the final phase and the winners’ concert of the Tongyeong Isang Yun Cello International Competition on November 5th and 6th. The Isangyun International Competition has been presented by the Tongyeong International Music Foundation since 2003. It is held in memory of Isang Yun (1917-1995), a renowned Korean composer, promoting cultural exchanges between nations through music while that supports young musicians from all over the world. The contest takes place annually in the month of November, alternating the piano, violin and cello disciplines. Isang Yun was born in Tongyeong in 1917, he created bridges between Asian and Western cultures, his style is part of traditional Korean music, and yet, working with the twelve-tone technique and other means of the Western avant-garde, it also has its place in the European tradition.
Upon his return from Korea, Christian Vásquez will travel to Venezuela for a long stay leading the various formations of EL SISTEMA, in which he plays a prominent role as musical director of the Juan José Landaeta Orchestra, formerly the Teresa Carreño Symphony Orchestra. On November 20, Christian Vásquez conducts the Juan José Landaeta with a program that includes: Tan Dun’s Wolf Totem, concerto for double bass and orchestra, with Edicson Ruiz as soloist, and the Concerto for orchestra by Béla Bartók; on November 26 he conducts the Simón Bolívar Symphony with the Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso by Camille Saint-Saëns, with Thibault Vieux on the violin, the Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra by Efraín Oscher, again with Edicson Ruiz on double bass and the Alpine Symphony by Richard Strauss; on December 3, Christian Vásquez joins the Gaêlica group to present the show Una noche de luz; On December 7, he conducts the Venezuelan Symphony with the overture to The Marriage of Figaro and the Concerto in A Major for clarinet and orchestra by W. A. Mozart, with Andrés Nieves on clarinet and Symphony no. 9, New World, by Antonín Dvořák, to round off his stay again with the Bolívar, on December 16, with Hector Berlioz’s Te Deum.
Immediately afterwards, Christian Vásquez will travel to the Opera National de Paris where he will work as assistant to Gustavo Dudamel in the production of Tristan and Isolde, and where he will return later in April to direct several ballet performances, after passing through Poland, with the Baltic Philharmonic , where he will work with the violinist Robert Lakatoš, and again Venezuela. Before the end of the season he will still go to Colombia to lead the Colombian National Orchestra, with Pacho Flores, and the Medellín Philharmonic, and Switzerland to conduct the Geneva Conservatory Orchestra.
