Robert Lakatoš has won numerous international awards, including first prizes at the Pablo Sarasate Competition (Pamplona, Spain, 2015), Mary Smart Concerto Competition (New York, 2013), and Societe Generale Serbia (Belgrade, 2009), as well as second prizes at Jeunesses Musicales Romania (Bucharest, 2012) and Andrea Postacchini (Fermo, Italy, 2012). Robert Lakatoš develops his concert career as a soloist and chamber musician performing in Europe, Israel and the United States. As a soloist, he has appeared with numerous orchestras including the Spanish RTVE Orchestra, Navarra Symphony Orchestra, Malaga Philharmonic, Minas Gerais Philharmonic, Krakow Philharmonic, Orquesta Sinfónica de la UAN (Mexico), Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra, New York Summit Festival Orchestra, RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, Vojvodina Symphony Orchestra and the Janáček Camerata. So far, he has collaborated with conductors such as Philip Greenberg, Fabio Mechetti, Gabriel Feltz, Manuel Hernández-Silva, Nicholas Milton, James Judd, James Tuggle, Lior Shambadal and Antoni Wit. He has made recordings for radio and television in his country and abroad and holds the position of Violin Professor at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, where he studied and was awarded as Best Young Artist in 2016 by the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina and the Vojvodina Academy of Arts and Sciences. Robert plays on a 1709 Stradivari violin from the collection of bow maker Vladimir Radosavljevic, whose bow he also uses.

It was premiered along the 2018/19 season with conductors Carlos Miguel Prieto, José Luis Gómez, Michiyoshi Inoue and Lucas Macías respectively, and since then it was played by the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería (Mexico) and the Opening Night Gala of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, both with C. M. Prieto; Filarmónica de Bogotá (Colombian premiere), Christian Vásquez; Colorado Springs Philharmonic, Josep Caballé Doménech; and Real Filharmonía de Galicia, with Manuel Hernández-Silva, together with the absolute premiere of Efraín Oscher’s Danzas Latinas; after Lille, the Concierto de Otoño is already programmed by the Winnipeg Symphony (Canadian premiere), José Luis Gómez; Liverpool Philharmonic (UK premiere), Domingo Hindoyan, together with the concerto Salseando by Roberto Sierra, UK premiere as well; Orquesta de Córdoba, Carlos Domínguez-Nieto, together with the absolute premiere of Concierto Mambí by Igmar Alderete; and some other orchestras to be announced.

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

Arturo Márquez’s Concierto de Otoño is the very first of a large and ambitious project of co-commissions of new trumpet concertos to outstanding composers as Paquito D’Rivera, Roberto Sierra, Efraín Oscher, Christian Lindberg and Daniel Freiberg involving orchestras form all around the world. Paquito D’Rivera’s Concerto Venezolano was premiered by the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería with Carlos Miguel Prieto and is going to be premiered soon by the San Diego Symphony Orchestra with Rafael Payare and Orquesta of Valencia in Spain with Vicent Alberola; and Roberto Sierras’ Salseando will be premiered on next January by the Royal Liverpool Symphony Orchestra and Domingo Hindoyan and about the summer by the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra and Giancarlo Guerrero.

Pacho Flores has just premiered Danzas Latinas by Efraín Oscher with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia and Manuel Hernández-Silva in a concert that also included Arturo Márquez’s Concierto de Otoño, the same week he launched his newest recording for Deutsche Grammophon, Cantos y Revueltas, with the same partners, Real Filharmonía and conductor Hernández-Silva. Cantos y Revueltas is also the title of the main work of the recording, a Fantasía Concertante for trumpet and Venezuelan cuatro, played in the premiere and the recording by the Venezuelan virtuoso Leo Rondón.

This trip to Argentina is a prelude to the upcoming debut of Hernández-Silva with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra in the US at the 2019/20 season, as well as to future visits to Norway, France, Germany or Australia. The album Cantos y Revueltas by Pacho Flores with cuatro player Leo Rondón and the Real Filharmonía de Galicia under Hernández-Silva will be released next July by Deutsche Grammophon. This album contains the homonymous work by Pacho Flores, Cantos y revueltas, that was premiered in January 2018 and recorded live for this double CD / DVD, together with other highlights by Pacho, Neruda, Villalobos or Piazzolla. Hernández-Silva is also going to premiere on next November Efraín Oscher’s Danzas Latinas for trumpet and orchestra, a commission of the Real Filharmonía, withPacho Flores.

Hernández-Silva will complete this month his first and fifth season as Principal and Artistic Director of the Navarra Symphony Orchestra and the Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra respectively, but an intense summer awaits him. After returning from Buenos Aires, he will continue with one of the activities he’s most passionate about: working with young people; on the one hand with a series of concerts with the Young Baroque Orchestra of Andalusia; and on the other hand with the Masterclass in Orchestral Conducting organised by the Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra. Hernández-Silva will then make his debut at Pollença Festival in Mallorca, along with Pacho Flores and the Symphony Orchestra of the Balearic Islands, and conduct a Homage to Gayarre with the Navarra Symphony Orchestra.

Image of the premiere of Cantos y Revueltas, Flores, Rondón, Hernández-Silva and the RFG. Copyright: RFG

Pacho Flores is playing this week with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Gran Canaria, a program that includes Akban Bunka by Christian Lindberg —appearing in FRACTALES, his last album for DG so far— and Concierto Mestizo by Efraín Oscher. He will perform the same repertoire the following week at the 11º Conference of the Brazilian Association of Trumpeters in Campinas.

Flores will then return to Europe to perform Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto and Lindberg’s Akban Bunka with the Sinfonieorchester Basel led by Michal Nesterowicz. After this American premiere in Florida, Cantos y Revueltas will then head for the Southern Cone for another historical premiere in Argentina: the performance by the Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra under Enrique Diemecke of Arturo Sandoval’s Trumpet Concerto No. 1 for the first time since its composition 25 years ago. It will take place on July 11 at Teatro Colón.

Carlos Domínguez-Nieto

Debuted at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires conducting the Buenos Aires Philharmonic in 1995. In the season 1997/98 he was assistant conductor of the Spanish National Youth Orchestra and of the Münchner Jugendorchester, working with Mstislav Rostropovich and András Ligeti between others. In 1999 he won the position of Assistant Conductor of Ivan Fischer in the Budapest Festival Orchestra. In 2001 won the First Prize in the International Conducting Competition of the Fundación Oriente de Lisboa.

In 2000 Domínguez-Nieto debuted as opera conductor in Salzburg with C. M. von Weber’s Der Freischütz. Since that year till 2005 he is Music Director at the Münchner Kammeroper, where he conducted 13 new productions. From 2009 to 2015 he was General Musik Direktor of the Landestheater Eisenach where he conducted more than 50 titles of opera as well as ballet. Domínguez-Nieto works regularly in the Stadtstheater Klagenfurt, Südostbayerisches Städtetheater, Staatsphilharmonie Halle and Staatskapelle Halle, Münchner Symphonieorchester, Münchner Rundfunk Orchester and Münchner Philharmoniker, Nürnberger Symphoniker, Hofer Symphoniker, WDR Symphonieorchester Köln, Bayerische Kammerorchester, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Brucknerorchester Linz, Württembergische Philharmonie, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, etc.

Furthermore he has conducted the Orquesta de Radiotelevisión Española, Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canari, Orquesta Filarmónica de Málaga, Real Filharmonía de Galicia, Warsaw Philharmonic, Hungarian Symphony, the Orchestra of the Hungarian National Opera, Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa, Orquesta Filarmónica de Buenos Aires and Sinfónica de Rosario in Argentina, Orquesta de la Universidad Nacional en México and the Aragua, Falcón, Guárico and Mérida Symphonies in Venezuela.

He recorded Sony-BMG and the Radio of Baviera, with the Münchner Rundfunk Orchester, the WDR Symphonieorchester Köln and the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria, with soloists as Francisco Araiza, Olga Scheps, Wen-Sinn Yang or Ingolf Turban. Carlos was born in Madrid 1972 where he studied piano, violoncello and composition, and moves to Vienna to study composition and orchestra conducting at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien with Leopold Hager and Uros Lajovic; and at the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg with Dennis-Russell Davis and Jorge Rotter.

In the second part of the program, Hernández-Silva conducts Revueltas’ Redes and Ginastera’s Dances from the Ballet Estancia. Manuel, Chief Conductor of the Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra, has been recently designated new Chief Conductor of the Navarra Symphony Orchestra. Hernández-Silva, who have received outstanding ovations in his debut with the Spanish National Orchestra, will follow an intense guest conducting activity visiting the Orquesta de Extremadura and the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra; and conducting Mozart’s Cosí fan tutte in the Teatro Cervantes in Malaga.

After Santiago, Pacho will play again Efraín Oscher’s Concierto Mestizo and Christian Lindberg’s Akban Bunka, with the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Alondra de la Parra. Pacho premiered the Concierto Mestizo in 2010 in Caracas with Domingo García Hindoyan and the Simón Bolívar Orchestra, and since then he played it more than 25 times all along the world, as in the opening concert of the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra season on past October under Perry So. In February the 23rd, Pacho will play another world premiere, the new Trumpet Concerto by Giancarlo Castro, dedicated to him, with Rafael Payare and the Ulster Orchestra.

Deeply committed with the expansion of solo trumpet repertoire, Pacho is developing an ambitious project of shared commissions for new trumpet concertos to outstanding composer such as Arturo Márquez, Roberto Sierra, Paquito D’Rivera, Efraín Oscher and Christian Lindberg, to be premiered all around the world along the season 18/19 and following. First of these commissions, Arturo Márquez’s one, will be played eight times between October 2018 and August 2019 in Mexico, USA, Japan and Spain.

Hernández-Silva is current Musical and Artistic Director of the Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra and held the same position formerly in Murcia Symphony Orchestra and Cordoba Orchestra, as well as Music Director of the Andalusia Youth Orchestra, all in Spain, and he was also Principal Guest Conductor of the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra. Manuel studied at the Vienna Superior Conservatory, where he earned his degree with honours, under the direction of Reinchard Schwarz and Georg Mark. From then, his career has brought him to all Europe, North and Latin America and Asia. Resident in Spain since 2005, he is also guest often to the most important Spanish orchestras. Between his recent and next engagements, stand out his debuts with the Spanish National Orchestra and the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, his return to the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra and Medellin Philharmonic, or, back in Spain, the Royal Galicia Filharmonia or Extremadura Orchestra, as well as his debut in both theatres Cervantes in Malaga and Villamarta in Jerez conducting Mozart’s Cosí fan tutte.

Deeply committed with pedagogy, he has worked with the Spanish National Youth Orchestra, the Barcelona Youth Orchestra, the Orchestral Practice Workshop of the Baremboim-Said Foundation and, in a more straight way as he was its Musical Director, with the Andalusia Youth Orchestra. He is also often guest to lectures and master classes, and he uses to organise and teach courses of orchestra conducting.

Hernández-Silva

Manuel Hernández-Silva conducted in several great international festivals, and he is a frequent guest of Spanish and foreign orchestras. He has been principal conductor of the Córdoba Orchestra; principal guest conductor of the Simón Bolívar Orchestra of Caracas, with which he worked intensively for over five years; and musical director of the Youth Orchestra of Andalucía. He is currently chief conductor and artist director of the Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra. He has worked with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Israel Symphony Orchestra, Prague Radio, Mulhouse Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic, Nord Czech Philharmonic, Olomouc Philharmonic, National of Mexico,Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, Chile National Orchestra, Venezuela Symphony Orchestra, Caracas Symphony Orchestra, Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra, Janacek Philharmonic, Rheinische Philharmonie, and the major orchestras in Spain.

Maestro Hernández Silva has undertaken an intense teaching activity, teaching internationally on conducting and performing, as well as numerous conferences. All this has earned him the recognition of the musicians with whom he has worked, as well as that of the audience and specialized critics. Manuel Hernández-Silva earned his degree from Vienna’s Superior Conservatory (Konservatorium der Stadt Wien) with honors, under Professors Reinhard Schwarz and Georg Mark. In his senior year he won the Forum Jünger Künstler Conducting Competition, convened by the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, which he conducted in the Austrian capital’s Konzerthaus.