Pacho Flores travels to Sweden for the premiere of the trumpet concerto Caballos Mágicos, by Christian Lindberg, with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, as well as for the recording of an album with works by Lindberg for European Grammophon. Along with this new piece, the recording includes Un Sueño Morisco, double concerto for trumpet and trombone that was commissioned and premiered by the ORTVE with Pacho Flores, Ximo Vicedo on the trombone and Lindberg as conductor. Lindberg will on this occasion perform again not only as conductor but also as trombonist.
This concert, which got its premiere in Spain with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia, is part of the project of shared commissions for new trumpet concerts to prominent composers launched by Pacho Flores and managed by his international agency ACM Concerts. The composers who have taken part in the first two rounds of commissions are Arturo Márquez, Paquito D’Rivera, Roberto Sierra, Efraín Oscher, Daniel Freiberg and Lindberg himself, and there is a third round in preparation now. The orchestras that have been involved in the different joint commissions and premieres are the National Symphony of Mexico, Tucson Symphony, Hyogo PAC Orchestra of Japan, Oviedo Filarmonía, Real Filharmonía de Galicia, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Bilkent Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Orquesta de Minería, Valencia Orchestra, San Diego Symphony Orchestra, Sinfónica de la Región de Murcia, Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, Orchestre National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine or the Arctic Philharmonic; and the conductors who have or are going to participate in these premieres are Carlos Miguel Prieto, José Luis Gómez, Michiyoshi Inoue, Lucas Macías, Domingo Hindoyan, Manuel Hernández-Silva, Rafael Payare, Paul Daniel and Christian Lindberg. Several of these concerts have already been recorded for the Deutsche Grammophon label.
The contribution of this project to the expansion of the trumpet repertoire has had no equal in the history of the instrument. This, together with the technological evolution of new four-piston prototypes in new keys that Pacho Flores is carrying out with the help of the Spanish manufacturer STOMVI, his intense educational activity, the recording legacy he is producing —in which he alternates the great classical works for the trumpet with this new exclusive repertoire— and, naturally, his unbeatable musical and technical conditions, makes Pacho Flores the most influential classical trumpeter in history. To these premieres must also be added the concerts that many other composers dedicate to Pacho on their own initiative, as well as those he has himself composed, such as Cantos y Revueltas, or what is possibly the first flugelhorn concerto ever written.
Trumpeter Pacho Flores will perform at the world premiere of a new trumpet concert next Monday, September 20 at 19:30 at the Barbican Center in London, United Kingdom. This premiere is the result of a commission, inspired by Pacho Flores himself, from Peter Ash, artistic director of the London Schools Symphony Orchestra, to Eleanor Alberga, an Afro-Caribbean composer (Kingston, Jamaica, 1949) of British nationality and residence.
Eleanor Alberga is a highly regarded British composer with commissions from the BBC Proms and the Royal Opera at Covent Garden. After studying piano and singing at the Royal Academy of Music in London, she began a career as a pianist which was then redirected to composition when she arrived at the London Contemporary Dance Theatre in 1978. After leaving the LCDT, she was able to focus entirely on composing, and since then the interest in her music has only increased. In 2015 her work ARISE, ATHENA!, commissioned by the PROMS for the opening of the Last Night, consolidated her international reputation as a composer of enormous talent and originality. Alberga has won several awards, including a NESTA Scholarship in 2000 and a Paul Hamlyn Award in 2019. In 2020 she was elected member of the Royal Academy of Music and in 2021 she received the Order of the British Empire for her services to music.
This new world premiere is, once again, the first of many to come for Pacho Flores along this 2021/22 season. He will afterwards perform the Swedish premiere of Caballos Mágicos, a trumpet concert by trombonist, conductor and composer Christian Lindberg, with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and the composer himself at the podium. This piece had its world premiere last May in Santiago de Compostela (Spain) together with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia and its principal conductor Paul Daniel. During his stay in Sweden, Pacho will participate in the recording of an album with works by Lindberg, including this same concert as well as Un Sueño Morisco, a double concerto for trumpet and trombone commissioned and premiered by the ORTVE, with Ximo Vicedo on the trombone and the composer as conductor. In October, Pacho will premiere Historias de Flores y Tangos, by Daniel Freiberg, with the Oviedo Filarmonía and Lucas Macías. In November, he will return to the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Domingo Hindoyan for the British premieres of Concierto venezolano, by Paquito D’Rivera, and Pacho’s own work Cantos y Revueltas, in which he will be accompanied by the cuatrista Leo Rondón. Later on, in February 2022, he will perform the Spanish and US premiere of Paquito D’Rivera’s concert, with the San Diego Symphony under Rafael Payare and the Valencia Orchestra under Hernández-Silva, respectively; and between March and April the Brazilean premiere of Roberto Sierra’s concert Salseando, with the Sinfónica do Estado de São Paulo and Carlos Miguel Prieto, which will then see its French premiere in June with the Orchestre National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine and Manuel Hernández-Silva. After this, Pacho will return to Spain to premiere Concierto Mambí, by Igmar Alderete, with the Córdoba Orchestra and its principal conductor, Domínguez-Nieto.
Pacho Flores and Hernández-Silva will offer a concert with the Nord Czech Philharmonic as part of the Beethoven Festival in Teplice, in the Czech Republic, next Thursday, June 17. Due to the restrictions still in force in the Central European country, the concert will be held without an audience and will later be broadcasted on June 27 on the orchestra’s YouTube channel and other platforms. The Nord Czech Philharmonic, Severočeská Filharmonie or Nordböhmische Philharmonie, in Teplice, is an orchestra that has been continuously active since 1838, and since 1964 it has been responsible for organizing the Beethoven Festival. Hernández-Silva has already conducted the Nord Czech Philharmonic on previous occasions, not so Pacho Flores, for whom this concert means his debut with the ensemble. The programme consists of two concerts for trumpet—the Concerto for Corno da Caccia, by Czech composer Neruda, and the Czech premiere of the Concierto de Otoño by Arturo Márquez—together with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.
This collaboration with the Nord Czech Philharmonic is not the first between both artists; on the contrary, Pacho Flores and Hernández-Silva have a long history of joint presence with Spanish orchestras such as the Navarra Symphony Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfónica de la Región de Murcia, the Malaga Philharmonic, the Simfònica de les Illes Balears and especially the Real Filharmonía de Galicia, with which they have performed several premieres and recorded the album Cantos y Revueltas for Deutsche Grammophon. New collaborations in Spain for the 2021/22 and 2022/23 seasons will be announced in due course, and new premieres are also planned with the Arctic Philharmonic in Norway or the Orchestre National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine in France. Recently, they have also been together with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Bogota (Colombia).
Arturo Márquez’s Concierto de Otoño is the result of the project of shared commissions for new trumpet concerts that Pacho himself has started. The concert was commissioned and premiered by the Mexico National Orquestra (Carlos Miguel Prieto), Tucson Symphony Orchestra (José Luis Gómez), Hyogo PAC Orchestra of Japan (Michiyoshi Inoue) and the Oviedo Filarmonía (Lucas Macías). This Czech premiere with the Nord Czech Philharmonie is the twenty-third performance since the first premiere in September 2018—the fourth under the baton of Hernández-Silva—, after having been performed in Mexico, USA, Japan, Spain, France, United Kingdom, Poland and Colombia.
Pacho Flores premieres Caballos mágicos, the new concerto for trumpet and orchestra by Christian Lindberg, next Thursday, May 27 with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia. The orchestra commissioned this piece together with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra in Turkey, and another ensemble yet to be determined. This is the third absolute premiere by Pacho Flores with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia (RFG), and the second within the Project of Shared Commissions for New Trumpet Concertos. Pacho Flores and the RFG premiered in January 2018, under Manuel Hernández-Silva, Pacho’s composition Cantos y Revueltas, in a concert tour that included Santiago, Vigo and A Coruña. The concerts were recorded and gave rise to the eponymous double CD / DVD for Deutsche Grammophon. In November 2019 and with the same conductor, Pacho and the RFG premiered Danzas Latinas, by Efraín Oscher. On this occasion, Paul Daniel, Principal Conductor of the orchestra, will be in charge of the new premiere.
Lindberg is also the author of Akban Bunka, one of the concerts that are part of Pacho Flores’ usual repertoire and that he has played all over the world, as well as of Un Sueño Morisco, a double concerto for trumpet and trombone that was commissioned and premiered by the RTVE Orchestra in March 2019, with Ximo Vicedo on the trombone and Lindberg himself on the podium, and that Pacho and Ximo have played this past 1 May at the ADDA in Alicante. Caballos mágicos will be the fifth concert premiered by Pacho Flores within this project of shared commissions after those by Arturo Márquez, Paquito D’Rivera, Roberto Sierra and the aforementioned Efraín Oscher. These two first rounds of commissions will be closed with the premiere of a sixth concert by Daniel Freiberg, and the project will soon be completed with a third round by three new composers.
Orchestras from all over the world participate in this project of commissions, and despite all the delays and inconveniences caused by the pandemic, many of the premieres, since the first one in September 2018, have already been carried out. What’s more important, these concerts become then part of Pacho Flores’ usual repertoire. This is the sequence of premieres by composer: Arturo Márquez: Orquesta Nacional de México, Carlos Miguel Prieto, September 2018; Tucson Symphony Orchestra (USA), José L. Gómez, January 2019; Hyogo PAC Orchestra (Japan), Michiyoshi Inoue, May 2019; and Oviedo Filarmonía, Lucas Macías, August 2019; Paquito D’Rivera: Orchesta de Minería (Mexico), Carlos Miguel Prieto, September 2019; Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (UK), Domingo Hindoyan, November 2021; Orquesta de Valencia, Manuel Hernández-Silva, February 2022; San Diego Symphony (USA), Rafael Payare, February 2022; Efraín Oscher: Real Filharmonía de Galicia (RFG), Hernández-Silva; November 2019; Roberto Sierra: Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (United Kingdom), Domingo Hindoyan, January 2020; Symphony of the Region of Murcia, Hernández-Silva, December 2020; Simfònica do Estado São Paulo (Brazil), conductor to be determined, March-April 2022: Orchestre National de Bordeaux Aquitaine (France), Manuel Hernández-Silva, June 2022; and some Daniel Freiberg premieres are also planned: Oviedo Filarmonía, Lucas Macías, October 2021; Arctic Philharmonic (Norway), Manuel Hernández-Silva and Orquesta de Minería (Mexico), Carlos Miguel Prieto, on dates to be determined.
Christian Lindberg has also been the director of Fractales, Pacho Flores’ third album for Deutsche Grammophon, and they recently recorded duets by Mozart and Bach’s inventions in an arrangement for trumpet and trombone for the European Grammophon label.
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.”
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.
