Spanish premiere of ‘Concerto Venezolano’ by Paquito D’Rivera

Spanish premiere of ‘Concerto Venezolano’ by Paquito D’Rivera

Pacho Flores (trumpets), Leo Rondón (Venezuelan cuatro) and the Orquesta de Valencia, conducted by Manuel Hernández-Silva, will perform the Spanish premiere of Paquito D’Rivera’s Concerto Venezolano on February 3 at the Teatro Principal in Valencia.

Despite the cancellations and delays due to the pandemic, Pacho Flores has been able to keep pace with the premieres of the new trumpet concerts within the project of shared commissions that he has been promoting over the last five years. Since the premiere of Arturo Marquez’s Concierto de Otoño on September 2018 by the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México and Carlos Miguel Prieto, 12 of the 21 foreseen premieres of this project have already taken place. The premiere of Historias de Flores y Tangos, by Daniel Freiberg, last 23 October, is the half-way mark on the premiere calendar, which will receive a great boost—should Omicron allow it—in 2022, in which we will see the last premieres of Paquito D’Rivera’s Concerto Venezonano (Spain and US) and Roberto Sierra’s Salseando (Brasil and France), as well as Daniel Freiberg’s second premiere.

Cantos y Revueltas, Pacho Flores, Hernández-Silva Leo Rondón, Deutsche Grammophon

The program also includes Cantos y Revueltas: Fantasia Concertante for trumpet, Venezuelan cuatro and strings, by Pacho Flores, and the Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Op. 39, by Jan Sibelius

This concert also means the debut of Manuel Hernández-Silva with the Valencia Orchestra, one of the Spanish few with which he had not yet worked. Hernández-Silva has held four tenures as Principal Conductor in our country: Murcia Region Symphony, Cordoba Orchestra, Malaga Philharmonic and Navarra Symphony Orchestra, and has become the conductor with more presence in this project, with three premieres in Spain and three others in France, Norway and Sweden.

 

Cantos y Revueltas was premiered with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia, Hernández-Silva and Leo Rondón in January 2018 on a concert tour in Galicia, whose live recording gave rise to a double CD/DVD for Deutsche Grammophon. Since then, it has been often performed in Spain (Murcia, Malaga, Navarra, Extremadura) and it has already been premiered in the US, Mexico, Colombia and the United Kingdom. After this concert in Valencia, it is scheduled in Norway and Sweden. Cantos y Revueltas is actually a double concert in which the Venezuelan cuatro has a leading role, to whose development Leo Rondón, the soloist who premiered and recorded it, played a great part, and who will also be present in Valencia.

The Concerto Venezolano  is a commission by the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería (Mexico), the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (UK), the Orquesta de València (Spain) and the San Diego Symphony Orchestra (USA)

After the premieres of Concierto Venezolano in Mexico (Orquesta de Minería under Carlos Miguel Prieto) and the United Kingdom (Liverpool Philharmonic under Domingo Hindoyan), this third premiere in Valencia with Hernández-Silva will be the continental European premiere that precedes the end of the cycle two weeks later with the San Diego Symphony and Rafael Payare in the US. The concerts of this project of shared commissions are specifically written for the extraordinary conditions of Pacho Flores and the varied instruments provided by the Valencian house STOMVI, which has developed new four-piston prototypes in new keys that greatly expand the tessitura and range of colors and timbres of this instrument, and, therefore, also the expressive possibilities it offers to the soloist. As an example, this is the list of instruments that would be needed to face the complete cycle of new concerts: Trumpets in B flat, C and D, cornets in F, B flat and E flat, soprano cornets in F, G and A, and, of course, a flugelhorn in B flat, which is, at the express request of Pacho, present in all of these new works.

Concerto Venezolano, Paquito D'Rivera

Pacho Flores with Vicente Honorato, General Director of STOMVI

This premiere is part of a project of shared commissions for new trumpet concerts by important composers such as Arturo Márquez, Roberto Sierra, Christian Lindberg, Daniel Freiberg, Efraín Oscher and D’Rivera himself.

An important detail to highlight about this project is that these works remain permanently in Pacho’s repertoire. Márquez’s concert, for example, has had further premieres in Poland, Colombia, France, the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic after the first premieres by the orchestras that participated in the initial commission, and has been programmed especially in the USA (Louisiana, Colorado, Maine, Buffalo, Ohio) ,Spain (Galicia, Navarra, Cordoba) or Chile, with a total of more than 30 performances in just four years, and this in the midst of a global pandemic.

Hernández-Silva, Pacho Flores, Roberto Sierra, Salseando estrenos

D. Freiberg, A. Márquez, P. D’Rivera, P. Flores and C. M. Prieto during the recording of Mestizo for Deutsche Grammophon

The Concerto Venezolano was recorded the same week of its premiere in Mexico in 2019, together with that of Arturo Márquez and two other concerts by composers who also participate in this project —not the works belonging to the project but rather previous ones: Concierto Mestizo de Efraín Oscher, premiered a decade ago (Caracas, 2010) with Bolívar and Hindoyan, and Crónicas Latinoamericanas by Daniel Freiberg, which is really an adaptation for trumpets of a concert originally written for clarinet by Paquito D’Rivera and premiered by the WDR Funkhausorchester and Wayne Marshall. The trumpet version was premiered by the Het Gelders Orkest from the Netherlands, conducted by Christian Vásquez. The release of this album was delayed by the pandemic, but it will finally be presented in the summer of 2022 and will be the 6th in Pacho’s discography—the 5th for Deutsche Grammophon—, after Cantar (2016), Entropía (2017), Fractales ( 2018) and Cantos y revueltas (2019). Pacho also appears as a guest soloist on several of Christian Lindberg’s recordings and acts as producer and conductor on the album Egregore, by trumpeter Fabio Brum for Naxos.


 

Leo Rondón and Pacho Flores, new premieres with the Liverpool Philharmonic

Leo Rondón and Pacho Flores, new premieres with the Liverpool Philharmonic

The Venezuelan cuatrista Leo Rondón accompanies Pacho Flores in two new important UK premieres with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic under Domingo Hindoyan, current Principal Conductor of the orchestra. On November 11, they will premiere Concerto Venezolano, by Paquito D’Rivera, and on November 14 it will be the turn for Cantos y Revueltas, by Pacho Flores himself. The Concierto Venezolano was commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic together with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería, which premiered and recorded it in the summer of 2019 under the direction of Carlos Miguel Prieto, the Valencia Orchestra, which will premiere it in Spain next February under Manuel Hernández-Silva, and the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, which will offer the American premiere at the end February under its Principal Conductor Rafael Payare.

Concierto Venezolano is already scheduled in other places this season, such as the Gran Canaria Philharmonic Orchestra with Hernández-Silva or the Orchestre National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine, which will premiere it in France under Hernández-Silva together with Roberto Sierra’s Salseando, another result of this ambitious project of shared commissions for new trumpet concerts dedicated to Pacho Flores.

Album cover of Cantos y Revueltas, with Flores, Rondón, the RFG and Hernández-Silva

Cantos y Revueltas, on the other hand, was premiered in 2018 by the Real Filharmonía de Galicia under Hernández-Silva and recorded for the homonymous album in Deutsche Grammophon. Since then, it has been performed by the Sinfónica de la Región de Murcia, Malaga Philharmonic, Navarre Symphony Orchestra, Bolívar Philharmonic of Miami, TCU Latin American Festival of Fort Worth in Texas, Jalisco Philharmonic or the Orquesta de Extremadura, and is already programmed in Valencia and Gran Canaria, together with D’Rivera’s Concierto Venezolano, and soon in Norway and Sweden. With a few exceptions, all performances of Cantos y Revueltas have had Leo Rondón and Hernández-Silva together with Pacho Flores.

Hernández-Silva, Pacho Flores, Roberto Sierra, Salseando estrenos

Freiberg, Márquez, D’Rivera, Flores and Prieto during a recording for Deutsche Grammophon

Project of shared commissions for new trumpet concerts

The project of shared commissions has resulted in new trumpet concerts by composers such as Arturo Márquez, the aforementioned Paquito D’Rivera and Roberto Sierra, Christian Lindberg, Efraín Oscher or Daniel Freiberg, and has attracted the attention of orchestras from all the world. Some of these orchestras have been involved in more than one commission, such as the Oviedo Filarmonía, Real Filharmonía de Galicia, Orquesta de Minería in Mexico and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, which have shared commissions with the National Symphony of Mexico, Tucson Symphony, Hyogo PAC Orchestra of Japan, Orquesta de Valencia, San Diego Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine, Orquestra do Estado de São Paulo, Arctic Philharmonic of Norway, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de la Región de Murcia, Bilkent Symphony from Turkey or Walla Walla Symphony in the USA.

Concerto Venezolano, Paquito D'Rivera

Pacho Flores with Vicente Honorato, CEO of STOMVI

All these concerts have been written for a wide variety of instruments —trumpets, cornets and flugelhorn— with four pistons and in different keys, some of them authentic prototypes that the Spanish brand STOMVI has manufactured for Pacho Flores in a personalized way, offering him a wide range of timbres and colors, a register and an expressive capacity never known before in a brass instrument.


 

 

 

Manuel Hernández-Silva with the ADDA, ORTVE and Cordoba orchestras

Manuel Hernández-Silva with the ADDA, ORTVE and Cordoba orchestras

After a spectacular concert at the Úbeda Festival in which he conducted the ORTVE orchestra with Marina Heredia and Cañizares, Manuel Hernández-Silva begins an intense symphonic season by leading the ADDA Simfònica from Alicante, the Cordoba Symphony Orchestra and—yet again—the ORTVE. With the ADDA orchestra he will conduct violist Isabel Villanueva in a program that includes Cantos de Ordesa, a concert for viola and orchestra by the recently deceased Antón García Abril, along with Vasili Kalinnikov’s Symphony No. 1 in G Minor. He will then lead the ORTVE orchestra in Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, and the Córdoba orchestra in Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 3 in D Major, D. 200 and Kalinnikov’s symphony.

Other outstanding commitments of this season include the Valencia Orchestra, where Manuel Hernández-Silva will conduct Pacho Flores and Leo Rondón at the Spanish premiere of Concierto Venezolano by Paquito D’Rivera, Cantos y Revueltas, by Flores himself, and Sibelius’s Symphony No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 39; the Real Filharmonía de Galicia, where he will conduct a Russian program including the overture A Life for the Tsar, by Mijaíl Glinka, Henryk Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in F sharp minor with Robert Lakatoš as soloist, and once again Kalinnikov’s Symphony No.1; the Orquesta Sinfónica de la Región de Murcia in Spain, where he will premiere Manuel Moreno Buendía’s Stabat Mater with the mezzosoprano María José Montiel and the baritone Javier Franco; the Gran Canaria Philharmonic, again with Pacho Flores and Leo Rondón; the National Symphony of Chile; the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, in a Spanish program that includes Rafael Aguirre (guitar), Beatriz Díaz (soprano) and César Augusto Gutiérrez (tenor) as soloists; or the Orchestre National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine for two new French premieres with Pacho Flores: the concerts Salseando, by Roberto Sierra, and Concierto Venezolano by Paquito D’Rivera, together with Silvestre Revueltas’s Redes, and Estancia by Alberto Ginastera.

Manuel Hernández-Silva with the ADDA, ORTVE and Cordoba orchestras

Manuel Hernández-Silva has been Principal Guest Conductor of the Simón Bolívar Orchestra and Musical and Artistic Director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de la Región de Murcia, Orquesta de Córdoba, Malaga Philharmonic and Navarre Symphony Orchestra.


 

Pacho Flores and Hernández-Silva with the Bogota Philharmonic

Pacho Flores and Hernández-Silva with the Bogota Philharmonic

Pacho Flores and Hernández-Silva return together to the Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra for a program that includes the Concerto for corno da caccia, by J. B. G. Neruda, the Colombian premiere of Cantos y Revueltas by Pacho Flores himself, which both artists recorded for the Deutsche Grammophon label, and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4. It will be on Friday, April 26. Previously, Pacho Flores will be the only protagonist in a concert in which he will appear as player and conductor of the Brass Ensemble of the Bogotá Philharmonic. The program will present, together with works by Copland and Dukas and arrangements of works by Gershwin, Sarasate, Piazzolla and Pacho Flores himself, the absolute premiere of Musas y Resuello, Symphonic movement for brass ensemble and percussion, a piece commissioned by the Bogotá Philharmonic to the Spanish-Venezuelan trumpeter. This concert will take place on Friday, April 17, after a week in which Pacho Flores will participate in various educational activities and a masterclasses.

Pacho Flores and Hernández-Silva have just recently presented Cantos y Revueltas together with the Orquesta de Extremadura, a concert that the Scherzo magazine collaborator Justo Romero defined as overwhelming, luminous and radiant: “The confluence of three Venezuelan talents such as conductor Manuel Hernández- Silva (…), trumpet player Pacho Flores (can someone play better?) and the virtuoso of the Venezuelan cuatro Leo Rondón (eighth notes and rhythm in vein) turned the tenth subscription program of the Extremadura Orchestra into a feast for the senses in which music was happiness and emotion. Overwhelming, yes, but, above all, joyous and brimming with art, inspiration, talent and fine quality.”

Pacho Flores, Hernández-Silva, Bogotá Philharmonic

Both artists have a dense history of collaborations full of memorable evenings, such as the premiere of Cantos y Revueltas with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia, whose live recording was later published as an album and led to further presentations with the orchestras of Malaga, Navarre, Murcia or the above mentioned Extremadura, but also the premieres of Danzas Latinas by Efraín Oscher (RFG) and Salseando by Roberto Sierra (OSRM), or the memorable version of the Concierto de otoño by Arturo Márquez (RFG). Still ahead are new premieres of works by composers such as Daniel Freiberg with the Arctic Philharmonic, Roberto Sierra with the Orchestra National de Bordeaux Aquitaine, and the Concerto Venezolano by Paquito D’Rivera with a Spanish orchestra to be soon announced.


 

 

 

The Extremadura Symphony Orchestra performs ‘Cantos y Revueltas’

The Extremadura Symphony Orchestra performs ‘Cantos y Revueltas’

Cantos y Revueltas will be presented by the Extremadura Symphony Orchestra with its original cast of soloists and conductor —Pacho Flores, Leo Rondón and Manuel Hernández-Silva— on March 11 and 12. After its premiere in Santiago, Vigo and A Coruña with the orchestra Real Filharmonía de Galicia, and the recording of the concerts that led to a double CD/DVD released by Pacho’s label, Deutsche Grammophon, Cantos y Revueltas has been performed, always with this trio of artists, in Murcia (Murcia Region Symphony), Andalusia (Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra), and Pamplona (Navarre Symphony Orchestra).

Cantos y Revueltas had its American premiere in Miami with the Bolívar Philharmonic Orchestra and cuatro soloist Héctor Molina under Carlos Riazuelo, and later in Mexico, with the Jalisco Philharmonic led by Jesús Medina and Héctor Molina again. After this presentation with the Extremadura Symphony Orchestra, Cantos y Revueltas will be performed again in Colombia, Mexico, Canada, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as in other Spanish cities yet to be announced.

Cantos y Revueltas, Extremadura Orchestra

Copyright RFG

In parallel to Cantos y Revueltas, Pacho Flores continues with his project of shared commissions for new trumpet concerts to distinguished composers such as Arturo Márquez, Paquito D’Rivera, Roberto Sierra, Christian Lindberg, Efraín Oscher and Daniel Freiberg. New premieres are scheduled both for the current as well as for next season, before starting a third phase of commissions that will be announced in due course. After these concerts with the Extremadura Symphony Orchestra, Pacho Flores and Manuel Hernández-Silva will meet once again in Colombia with the Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra, an event that will include a new American presentation of Cantos y Revueltas as well as the premiere of one of Pacho’s latest works, a Divertimento for brass ensemble, showing the growing attention that Pacho Flores is paying to his composer facet, and which will soon bring new important news.