Perry So begins his tenure with the New Haven Symphony

Perry So begins his tenure with the New Haven Symphony

Perry So formally begins his new responsibility as Music Director of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra this coming July 1, for an initial period of three seasons until June 30, 2027. His presentation as the new Music Director of the NHSO took place last Saturday, June 15, within the orchestra’s annual collaboration with the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, ARTIDEA, which was held on the open-air stage of the New Haven Green. Perry will combine this new responsibility with his position as Music and Artistic Director of the Navarra Symphony Orchestra, which he has been holding since the 2022/23 season. With a contract in force until the end of the 2024/25 season, the orchestra recently announced its renewal after August 2025..

The New Haven Symphony Orchestra is the fourth oldest orchestra in the United States, its performances and accessible educational programs reach more than 40,000 regular audiences and 20,000 students each year. Innovative programming and dedication to promoting new work commissions inspire more engaged audience participation and meaningful artistic and educational collaborations. Through the nationally acclaimed Harmony Fellowship program, as well as numerous award-winning educational and community engagement programs, the Symphony strives to be a leader in racial equity in the arts.

Perry So begins tenure with the New Haven Symphony

Perry So was born in Hong Kong in 1982, where he received early musical training in piano, organ, violin, viola and composition. He later graduated in Comparative Literature from Yale University with a specialization in 20th-century Central European music and literature. He served as Associate Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Conducting Fellow of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Artistic Collaborator of the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias in Spain, and on the conducting faculty of the Manhattan School of Music. As a student at Yale University he founded an orchestra and led the undergraduate opera company. He received his training as a conductor initially under James Sinclair and subsequently with Gustav Meier at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore and received First and Special Prizes at the International Prokofiev Conducting Competition in St Petersburg, Russia.


 

Christian Vásquez, China tour with the Landaeta Symphony

Christian Vásquez, China tour with the Landaeta Symphony

Christian Vásquez begins a tour to China with the Juan José Landaeta Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, of which he has been Music Director since 2010, when its official name was still Teresa Carreño Youth Symphony Orchestra. Christian was also recently appointed Associate Director of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, an appointment that sanctions his long and close relationship with the orchestra in particular, and with the Children’s and Youth Orchestra System in general, within which he was trained and of which he never really left, as he was also named musical director of the José Félix Ribas Youth Symphony in 2006, still during his student days. He recently led the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra on another China tour. In the meantime, Christian also became Music Director of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra at the beginning of the 2013/14 season, a position he held until 2019, and was Principal Guest Conductor of the Gävle Orchestra in Sweden and Arnhem Orchestra in The Netherlands.

An extract from the El Sistema press release: “The Juan José Landaeta Symphony Orchestra (OSJJL) will thus undertake its first international tour. During its stay in the Chinese capital, the group will offer three concerts in addition to participating in the creation of a binational orchestra together with local musicians, in a meeting that aims to be a bridge between the two cultures through the universal language of music. This tour is part of the celebration of 50 years of diplomatic relations between Venezuela and the Republic of China. The OSJJL was created in 2018 at the initiative of Eduardo Méndez, executive director of El Sistema, as a tribute to the first orchestra founded by Maestro José Antonio Abreu in 1975. The current group debuted in the preamble to the celebration of the 43rd anniversary of El Sistema. This group has reached a solid musical level thanks to its associate conductors Christian Vásquez and Jesús Uzcátegui together with the meticulous work of an outstanding group of Venezuelan conductors, among whom are Enluis Montes Olivar, Rodolfo Saglimbeni, Joshua Dos Santos and Pablo Castellanos, who have contributed with their talent and experience to the training of this exceptional group, which in turn has become an important source of opportunities for young Venezuelan soloists”.

Christian Vásquez, China tour with the Landaeta Symphony

The great debut of the Juan José Landaeta Symphony Orchestra in Asia will be led by the Chinese National Orchestra in a binational concert – on Monday, June 17 – that will be conducted by Christian Vásquez and Liu Zheng. The imposing Beijing Concert Hall theater will be the stage for a repertoire that combines masterpieces from China and Venezuela and celebrates the richness and diversity of music worldwide. The Spring Festival Overture by Li Huanzhi; Dance of Yao People by Liu Tieshan and Mao Yuan; Dance of Golden Snake by Er Nie; and Jasmine Flowers, one of the best-known Chinese compositions in the world, are the Chinese works that will be performed. On the other hand, Margariteña by Inocente Carreño, Santa Cruz de Pacairigua by Evencio Castellanos, Venezuela by Pablo Herrero and José Luis Armenteros, and Alma Llanera by Rafael Bolívar Coronado and Pedro Elías Gutiérrez, will put the Venezuelan flavor in Beijing. Additionally, the group will perform Sensemayá, by the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas.

On Tuesday, June 18, the OSJJL will return to the Beijing Concert Hall under the baton of maestro Christian Vásquez. In this concert, the Venezuelan orchestra will take the public on a vibrant journey, with Revueltas’ The Night of the Mayans, -a colorful work that immerses the public in a magical and ritualistic universe- and Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, a composition that evokes a whirlwind of passions, dreams and fantasies. Finally, on Thursday, June 20, they will visit the Beijing Science and Culture Youth Center of the Song Ching Ling Foundation. The concert will be divided into two parts. The works by Carreño, Revueltas and Castellanos, together with the last movement of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4, will be performed in the first part, which will be conducted by Maestro Zheng. Next, the Spring Festival Overture by Li Huanzhi and Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky will be conducted by Christian. Jupiter, from Gustav Holst’s The Planets, and the fourth movement of Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, both conducted by Zheng, will also be performed.


 

Perry So conducts the New Haven Symphony Orchestra

Perry So conducts the New Haven Symphony Orchestra

Perry So, who begins his tenure as Musical Director of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra on July 1, will now lead the orchestra this coming Saturday, June 15 at 8:00 p.m. in the formation’s annual collaboration with the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, ARTIDEA, which will take place on the open-air stage of the New Haven Green. The festive program involves a diverse roster of collaborators including Hillhouse Marching Band, NHSO concertmaster David Southorn, Hanan Hameen and the Juneteenth Coalition, vocalist Carly Callahan, St. Lukes Steel Band, erhu (the traditional Chinese violin) soloist Joy Lu, or the Spanish Community of Wallingford Mariachi Band and Dancers. Perry So has just launched the 2024/25 season of the Navarra Symphony, his third at the helm of the formation, while announcing his renewal as chief and artistic director starting in August 2025.

The fourth-oldest orchestra in America, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra’s exceptional and accessible performances and education programs reach more than 40,000 audience members and 20,000 students each year. Innovative programming and a dedication to the commission of new works inspires deeper audience engagement and meaningful artistic and educational collaborations. Through the nationally-acclaimed Harmony Fellowship program, as well as numerous award-winning education and community engagement programs, the Symphony strives to be a leader for racial equity in the arts. 

Perry So conducts the New Haven Symphony Orchestra

Perry So was born in Hong Kong in 1982, where he received early musical training in piano, organ, violin, viola and composition. He later graduated in Comparative Literature from Yale University with a specialization in 20th-century Central European music and literature. During that period he founded an academic orchestra and conducted lyrical productions with graduating students. In 2008 he studied conducting at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore under the tutelage of Maestro Gustav Meier, receiving First Prize and Special Prize at the 5th Edition of the Prokofiev International Conducting Competition in St. Petersburg. After this recognition he was named Assistant Conductor and then Associate Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and later he was part of the Dudamel fellowship program of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and since then he has conducted some of the most important American, European and Asian orchestras. Since the 2022/23 season he has been Music and Artistic Director of the Navarra Symphony and since next June he is the new Music Director of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra.


 

Vásquez and Ferrer end premieres of Flores’ clarinet concerto

Vásquez and Ferrer end premieres of Flores’ clarinet concerto

Christian Vásquez and Juan Ferrer meet again, this time with the Symphony of the Region of Murcia, to close the premiere cycle of Áurea, Rhapsody for clarinet and orchestra by Pacho Flores, commissioned by the Symphony of Galicia and the Orchestra of Extremadura next to the Murcian orchestra. After the premieres with the Galician Symphony also under Vásquez’s conducting on April 18 and 19, and in Extremadura, where the baton was led by Andrés Salado, Vásquez takes the baton again for this closing on May 31 at the Víctor Villegas Auditorium in Murcia and June 1 at the El Batel Auditorium in Cartagena. This concert is already scheduled to premiere in Germany next season with the Wuppertal Sinfonieorchester, once again led by Christian Vásquez, on April 6 and 7, 2025. The soloist, naturally, is always Juan Ferrer, to whom it is dedicated the concerto.

Christian Vásquez was chief conductor of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra between 2013 and 2019, and principal guest conductor of the Gävle Symphony Orchestra between 2010 and 2013 and of the Het Gelders Orkest from 2015 to 2020. He is currently associate conductor of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and conductor musical of the Juan Jose Landaeta Orchestra, belonging to the SISTEMA of Venezuela. Vásquez has worked with orchestras such as the Philharmonia Orchestra, Residentie Orkest, Orchester de la Suisse Romande, Vienna Radio Symphony, Salzburg Camerata, Russian State Symphony, Orchester National du Capitole de Toulouse, Galician Symphony, Berlin Konzerthausorchester, Sinfónica Prague Radio, Warsaw Beethoven Festival, Poznan, Rotterdam, Helsinki, Turku and Munich Philharmonic Orchestras, Basel Symphony, Estonian National Orchestra, Royal Danish Orchestra, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, RTE National Orchestra Ireland, Tokyo Philharmonic or Singapore Symphony. In North America he has conducted the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, National Arts Center Orchestra (Ottawa) and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, during his participation in their Young Artist Fellowship program.

Vásquez and Ferrer end premieres of Flores' clarinet concerto

©Takafumi Ueno

Juan Ferrer has been a guest of 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 among many others. Juan Ferrer is a Professor at the Alfonso He teaches courses 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: Salvador Brotóns, Fernado Buide, Eduardo Soutullo, Karolis Biveinis, Octavio Vázquez, Wladimir Rosinskij and Juan Durán.


 

Vásquez and Rondón with the Tenerife Symphony

Vásquez and Rondón with the Tenerife Symphony

Christian Vásquez and Leo Rondón meet with the Tenerife Symphony to offer the Concerto del Mar for Venezuelan Cuatro and orchestra, it will be next Friday, May 24 at the Adán Martín Auditorium in Tenerife. This concert had a pre-premiere with an instrumental ensemble formed by musicians from the Symphony Orchestra of the Region of Murcia in April 2022 and had its absolute premiere in its final version in May 2023 with the National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia under the direction by Hernández-Silva, so this performance in Tenerife is his true premiere in Spain. Next season, programming is already planned for the seasons of a Spanish and a Polish orchestra, which will be announced in due course. In addition, Vásquez will conduct the Tenerife Symphony with Antrópolis by Gabriela Ortiz, Santa Cruz de Pacairigua, by Evencio Castellanos, and Estancia: Cuatro danzas, op. 8a by Alberto Ginastera.

In this work by Rondón, canonically organized in three movements; Parranda velera, Punto de Cruces and Estribillo de los Pescadores, highlight some of the most popular rhythms of Venezuela, such as the merengue, the parranda, the waltz and the joropo with an oriental chorus, where the four is exploited from its initial conception as a rhythmic accompaniment. to the enormous palette of possibilities that an entire generation of virtuoso Cuatro players have been able to incorporate into the instrument in recent years, integrating it into the symphonic repertoire thanks to contributions from composers such as Gonzalo Grau, Orlando Cardozo, Leonardo Lozano, Juan Carlos Sanz, etc. 

Vásquez and Rondón with the Tenerife Symphony

After the premiere of his Concerto del Mar, Rondón is already finishing the composition of a new concerto for Cuatro and orchestra titled Concerto del Llano, which will be the second of a trilogy. He will also continue his work in the artistic organization of the PAAX GNP Festival, chaired by the Mexican conductor Alondra de la Parra and which will take place again in June 2024 in the Riviera Maya of Mexico. He continues working with the maestro Alexis Cárdenas and his quartet, and with a duo with the French pianist Thomas Enhco, with whom he published an album with the Chilean tenor Emiliano González Toro, in tribute to the singer Violeta Parra. Known as Leo Rondón, Leonidas Rondón (Guama, Yaracuy, 1984), who was a prominent participant with a podium at the La Siembra del Cuatro Festival in Venezuela, has collaborated with the Quatuor Debussy, L’Arpeggiata by Christina Pluhar and the Mexican tenor Rolando Villazón. Also with orchestras such as the Arctic Philharmonic of Norway, Royal Philharmonic of Galicia, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Orchester National de l’Ile de France, Symphony of the Region of Murcia, Orchestra of Valencia, Symphony of Castilla y León, Orchestra of Extremadura, Symphony of Navarra, Tunisia Symphony Orchestra or Malaga Philharmonic. For years he organized, together with maestro Cristóbal Soto, the Venezuelan Creole Music Summer Course, a Venezuelan music teaching camp in the city of Mirecourt, France. He is currently carrying out his solo project, Leo Rondón Project.


 

Marina Heredia returns to the Galician Symphony

Marina Heredia returns to the Galician Symphony

Marina Heredia returns to the Galician Symphony for a two-week stay in which she will present a double program: On May 16 and 17 she will sing El Amor Brujo by Manuel de Falla in the auditoriums of Ferrol and Pontevedra, and the following week, on the 24th and 25th, already at the Palacio de la Ópera de Coruña, she will star in the Spanish premiere of En LIbertad! El camino de los gitanos (In Freedom! The journey of the Gipsies), a work composed together by José Quevedo ‘Bolita’ and Joan Albert Amargós, in which she shares solo roles with Quevedo himself on flamenco guitar and Paquito González on percussion. Both programs will be conducted by maestro Jose Trigueros, who also conducted she on two other previous visits to the Galician Symphony in which the Canciones Españolas Antiguas, compiled and harmonized by Federico García Lorca and orchestrated by Trigueros himself, were performed. In freedom! is the result of a commission from the Duisburger Philharmoniker, with which it was premiered in July 2023.

Marina Heredia is definitely the most demanded singer internationally for this repertoire, only in the last two seasons she could be seen at the Konzerthaus and the Philharmonie of Berlin together with the Berlin Radio Symphony and Pablo Heras-Casado; the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin for a project with mandolinist Avi Avital, in the Laieszhalle of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg for the Martha Argerich Festival, or the Lausitz Festival in Görlitz.

Marina Heredia returns to the Galician Symphony

Marina has sung with orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Orchester National de Lille, Orquestra Sinfônica da Casa da Música de Porto, the Rouen Opera or the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with which he recorded El Amor Brujo under the direction of Pablo Heras-Casado or the production of La Fura del Baus for the Granada Festival under the baton of Manuel Hernández-Silva as well as with the Navarra Symphony under the baton of Perry So, RTVE under the direction, again, of Hernández-Silva, the Symphony of the Region of Murcia with Roberto Forés or the North Macedonia Philharmonic with Christian Vásquez


 

Vásquez conducts Villazón with the Oviedo Filarmonía

Vásquez conducts Villazón with the Oviedo Filarmonía

Christian Vásquez comes to Oviedo to replace maestro Alondra de la Parra, who has had to cancel for health reasons, at the head of the Oviedo Filarmonía, for a program that includes songs by Haydn, Mozart and Verdi, with Rolando Villazón as soloist, Danzón No. 2 by Arturo Márquez and Symphony No. 8 in G major, op.88, by Dvořák. The concert will take place next Thursday, May 9 at the Príncipe Felipe Auditorium in Oviedo. This unforeseen substitution precedes his visit to the Tenerife Symphony the following week, with which he will conduct the Concerto el Mar, for Venezuelan Cuatro and orchestra, along with works by Gabriela Ortiz, Evencio Castellanos and Alberto Ginastera.

Christian Vásquez is one of the most prolific Venezuelan musical talents of recent years. Recognized for his charismatic stage presence, powerful performances, and musical integrity, Vásquez continues to attract international attention as one of today’s leading conductors. Christian 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 Music Director of the José Félix Ribas Youth Symphony, in the state of Aragua. He was a Dudamel scholarship recipient during the 2009/10 season.

Christian Vásquez conducts Rolando Villazón with the Oviedo Filarmonía

Following his debut with the Gävle Symphony Orchestra in October 2009, one of his first appearances in Europe, Christian Vásquez was appointed its Principal Guest Conductor, a position he held between 2010 and 2013. In 2010 he was also named Music Director of the Symphony Orchestra Teresa Carreño from Venezuela, and has continued to lead it since 2017, when it changed its name to Orquesta Juan Jose Landaeta. With this formation, which continues to be the most important youth orchestra in Venezuela, they have made many interesting international tours that have taken them to stages in London, Berlin, Lisbon, Hamburg, Milan, Toulouse, Vienna, Amsterdam, Salzburg, Munich, Stockholm, Istanbul, Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai.

Christian Vásquez became Chief Conductor of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra at the beginning of the 2013/14 season, inaugurating an initial four-year mandate that would be extended for a further two years until 2019, following a successful relationship with the orchestra. He began his tenure with a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in the orchestra’s new hall in August 2013. He led the orchestra on several tours through Scandinavia, Russia, Germany and the Netherlands, presenting ambitious programs and receiving critical acclaim. favorable. 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 with an exclusively Latin program. In the spring of 2015, Christian achieved further success by directing four performances of Bizet’s Carmen at the Norwegian Opera.

In addition to his many responsibilities with the Gävle Symphony Orchestra and his regular engagements in Stavanger and Arnhem, Christian Vásquez has worked with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchester de la Suisse Romande, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Rotterdam, Salzburg Camerata, Russian State Symphony, Tokyo Philharmonic and Singapore Symphony Orchestra. In 2010, Vásquez made his debut with the Israel Philharmonic at the invitation of music director Zubin Mehta. During the 2010/2011 season he also conducted the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, the Orchester National du Capitole de Toulouse, the Orchester Philharmonique de Radio France and the National Orchestra of Belgium. In North America, Vásquez has conducted the National Arts Center Orchestra (Ottawa), the New Jersey Symphony, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Vásquez has since again conducted the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and the Camerata Salzburg on international tours with performances at the Grosses Festspielhaus, Wiener Konzerthaus, Alte Oper Frankfurt and the Berliner Philharmonie, as well as the Royal Northern Sinfonia, Orchester National du Capitole de Toulouse , Galician Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Konzerthausorchester, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Warsaw Beethoven Festival Orchestra, Turku Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Mexican National Symphony, Poznan Philharmonic in Poland, Royal Danish Orchestra, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, RTE National Orchestra of Ireland, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra with Pinchas Zukerman, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra for Beethoven’s Ninth as part of the orchestra’s long December tradition, or the two editions of the Tongyeong International Music Festival in Korea to which he has been invited. From 2021 to 2023 Vásquez also assisted Gustavo Dudamel in the new production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at the Paris Opera, and made his debut with the Paris Opera Orchestra and the Ballet School of the Opera conducting four performances at the Opera Garnier.

In his commitment to education and youth, he frequently conducts youth orchestras such as the InterHarmony International Festival Youth Orchestra, the Barcelona Youth Orchestra (Spain) or the Geneva Conservatory Orchestra (Switzerland), in addition to his frequent concerts with the Juan José Landaeta and other orchestras of ‘El Sistema’. Vásquez has worked with world-class musicians such as Simon Rattle, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Pacho Flores, Truls Mork, Sol Gabetta, Sergio Tiempo, Ray Chen, Kolja Blacher, Veronika Eberle, James Ehnes, Elina Vähälä, Sergey Khachatryan, Liza Ferschtman, Arabella Steinbacher, Benjamin Schmid, Alexandra Soumm, Antoine Tamestit, Natalie Clein, Julian Steckel, Claudio Bohorquez, Narek Hakhnazaryan, Amanda Forsyth, Jamie Walton, Pei-Jee Ng, Jian Wang, Edicson Ruiz, Martin Grubinger, Kari Kriikku, Hakan Hardenberger, Tine Thing Helseth, Juan Ferrer, Reinhold Friedrich, Colin Currie, Simon Trpceski, Jonathan Biss, Kyrill Gerstein, Makoto Ozone, Håvard Gimse, Ingolf Wunder, Nicholas Hodges, Joseph Moog, Kristhyan Benitez, Kristiina Rokashevich, Bertrand Chamayou, Marianna Shirinyan, Lucas Jussen, Ole Kristian Dahl, Roland Pontinen, Igor Levit or Stefan Schulz.


 

Christian Vásquez returns to the Orchestre Pasdeloup

Christian Vásquez returns to the Orchestre Pasdeloup

Christian Vásquez returns to the Orchester Pasdeloup in Paris. After his debut last January 2023 with the orchestra at the Paris Philharmonie, in which he conducted works by Beethoven and Dvořàk, he was again invited to conduct two concerts in the current season, the first of which took place last November 11, again at the Grande Salle Pierre Boulez of the Philharmonie, with a program titled South American Tour that included works by Gershwin, Lecuona, Gardel, Bonfiglio and Márquez, with pianist Dina Bensaïd and Patricio Bonfiglio & El Sindicato Milonguero as soloists. The second of these concerts will take place at La Seine Musicale next Sunday, April 28, 2024, and with a totally different program that includes works by French authors such as Lalo, Overture to Le Roi d’Ys, and Saint-Saëns, Danse Macabre, Grieg’s piano concerto with François Dumont as soloist and Stravinsky’s The Firebird.

This is being a period of intense activity that includes several premieres, such as the new trumpet concerto by the Colombian-Finnish composer Tuomas Turriago, with the Tampere Orchestra, with Pacho Flores as soloist, then he conducted the Galician Symphony with the Fuga Criolla, by Juan Bautista Plaza, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2, and the absolute premiere of the new clarinet concerto by Pacho Flores, dedicated to Juan Ferrer, who served as soloist, and whom he wiññ also later conduct with the Orchestra of the Region of Murcia, next to La Alborada del Gracioso, by Ravel, and Pictures at an Exhibition, by Musorgski. The Clarinet Concerto by Pacho Flores is a shared commission between the aforementioned orchestras of Galicia and Murcia, and the Extremadura Orchestra.

Christian Vásquez returns to the Orchestre Pasdeloup

A little later and with the Tenerife Symphony, Christian will conduct the European premiere of the Concierto del Mar for Venezuelan Cuatro and Orchestra, with the composer himself as soloist, along with works by Gabriela Ortiz, Evencio Castellanos and Alberto Ginastera.


 

Abraham Cupeiro presents PANGEA with the Oldenburgisches Staatsorchester

Abraham Cupeiro presents PANGEA with the Oldenburgisches Staatsorchester

Abraham Cupeiro presents PANGEA with the Oldenburgisches Staatsorchester under the baton of maestro Antonio Planelles Gallego next Sunday, April 28. This is a family activity that will take place in a double session at 11:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., in the Großes Haus of the Oldenburgisches Staatstheater. PANGEA is the second album by Abraham Cupeiro, recorded with the London Symphony under the direction of Dimas Ruiz. He has recently presented a new project, MYTHOS, at the Teatro Campoamor in Oviedo together with the Oviedo Filarmonía and directed by Fernando Briones. MYTHOS is his third and last album to date, also recorded with London Symphony and Dimas Ruiz.

About 200 million years ago on our planet there was a single gigantic continent: Pangea. This began to separate and over time gave rise to the different current continents as we know them. The journey we propose with this concert is the union through music of the different parts of the planet. Pangea is an educational and entertaining show that brings us closer to other cultures, with original music by Abraham Cupeiro and María Ruiz.

Abraham Cupeiro presents PANGEA with the Oldenburgisches Staatsorchester

During the concert they will sound from southern Oceania with the echoes of its conch shells, to the mysterious Chinese mountains that the sound of the Hulusi draws with its melismatic melodies; great plains like those of North America, jungles like those of South America, the Peule flute of Senegal, the Bulgarian Bagpipe, the defiant Zurna and the ancient shepherd’s horns will sew the dress that will once again unite our land. With Pangea, Abraham Cupeiro proposes a trip that is a hymn to the cultural diversity of our planet.


 

Christian Vásquez and Juan Ferrer, premiere with the Galicia Symphony

Christian Vásquez and Juan Ferrer, premiere with the Galicia Symphony

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.

Christian Vásquez and Juan Ferrer, premiere with the Galicia 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.