Christian Vásquez returns to the Opéra National de Paris to assist Gustavo Dudamel in the rehearsals and performances of Tristan and Isolde that are taking place during the months of December, January and February, and will return again in April this year to conduct various ballet performances. Meanwhile he also appeared last week with the Orchestre Pasdeloup at the Philharmonie de Paris with which he got extraordinary reviews and immediately received two new invitations to return again in April this season as well as at the beginning of the next season.
The Orchestre Pasdeloup is the oldest active French orchestra. After finishing his musical studies, Jules Pasdeloup founded the Society of Young Artists in 1852, which recruited its musicians from among the students of the Conservatoire and offered its concerts at the Salle Herz. Encouraged by the results, Jules Pasdeloup created a new orchestra consisting on the best musicians and started to offer the “Concerts Populaires” on October 27, 1861 at the Cirque Napoléon on boulevard des Filles-du-Calvaire, intended for an audience hitherto excluded from musical evenings, and whose success was immediate and considerable. By founding the “Popular Concerts”, Jules Pasdeloup gave birth to a new concert form that quickly experienced many variations throughout France and also abroad. The “People’s Concert” became a true institution that played a decisive role in creating new audiences by introducing the German repertoire but also exerting a positive influence on French symphonic production.
After this long period in Paris and before returning to the Opéra de Paris to conduct the orchestra in performances of the dance company, Christian will lead the Baltic Philharmonic in Poland together with the violinist Robert Lakatoš and will spend several weeks in Venezuela working with EL SISTEMA orchestras, especially the Juan José Landaeta Orchestra, of which he is musical director. After that second period at the Opéra de Paris, Christian will return to Latin America as he will visit Colombia and Mexico before finishing off the season in Switzerland.
Pacho Flores begins in December his artistic residency with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, which will be completed with two further visits to the British orchestra in May and July 2023 and close with the recording of a new album with its principal conductor, Domingo Hindoyan. In this first visit, Pacho will participate in the Spirit of Christmas concerts under the direction of Ian Tracey; in May, he will offer two French trumpet concerts by Tomasi and Jolivet; and in July he will perform again Salseando by Roberto Sierra, a concert co-commissioned and premiered by the orchestra back in 2020, and offer the UK premiere of Altar de Bronce, a new trumpet concerto by Gabriela Ortiz, commissioned together with the Galician Symphony (Hernández-Silva), New World Symphony (Carlos Miguel Prieto) and San Diego Symphony (Rafael Payare).
Pacho’s relationship with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic is very close, as it is the fourth season that Pacho will perform at the Royal Philharmonic Hall after his visits in the 2018/19, 2019/20 and 2021/22 seasons. The orchestra was part of the joint commission of three new trumpet concertos: Salseando, by Roberto Sierra, Altar de Bronce, by Gabriela Ortiz, and Concerto Venezolano by Paquito D’Rivera; along which Pacho has also performed Arturo Márquez’s Concierto de Otoño, a result of the same project of shared commissions, and Cantos y Revueltas, by Pacho himself.
This season Pacho is also resident artist with the Galicia Symphony Orchestra, with which he will offer two symphonic programs, both conducted by Manuel Hernández-Silva, and a chamber music concert with Jesús ‘Pingüino’ Gonzalez, included in the season of the Philharmonic Society of A Coruña. The symphonic programs include the Galician Youth Symphony Orchestra, with which he will perform Concierto de Otoño by Márquez and Albares, a flugelhorn concert by Flores himself; and the Galicia Symphony Orchestra, with D’Rivera’s Concerto Venezolano and the World premiere of Ortiz’s Altar de Bronce.
Manuel Hernández-Silva conducts two programs within the symphonic season of the Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra at the Teatro Colón, including the opening concert. In this first subscription concert, which will take place on Saturday, March 25, 2023, he will conduct a monograph on Johannes Brahms including the Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77, with Frank Peter Zimmerman, and the Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68. On July 1, 2023 he will conduct his second program at the eighth subscription concert, with the Sinfonia concertante for violin, viola and orchestra in E Flat Major, K. 364/320d by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Diarios VI by Gerardo Gandini, and Redes, by Silvestre Revueltas.
Before his first visit to Buenos Aires, he will make his debut with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National du Pays de la Loire and the Norwegian Arctic Philharmonic, and in between visits to Buenos Aires he will also maje his debut with the Galicia Symphony Orchestra, also in a double stay as he will dedicate a week to the Youth Orchestra and another to the professional orchestra, where he will conduct the World premiere of Altar de Bronce, the new concert for Pacho Flores by the Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz, a shared commission between the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the New World Symphony and San Diego Symphony Orchestra.
After this engagement in Galicia, Hernández-Silva will return to the National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia where, again in a period of two weeks, he will conduct two programs, the second of which including the American premiere of Concierto del Mar for Venezuelan Cuatro and orchestra, by Leo Rondón, with the composer himself as soloist. After his second concert in Buenos Aires, he will travel to Santiago to lead the Chilean National Symphony and will close the season at the Cesky Krumlov Festival leading the Prague Philharmonic and soloists Beatriz Díaz, soprano, Pablo García López, tenor, and Rafael Aguirre, guitar in a Spanish program, similar to the one he conducted last season with the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra.
Christian Vásquez conducts several concerts with various EL SISTEMA orchestras in Venezuela throughout these months of November and December, before heading to France to act as assistant conductor to Gustavo Dudamel at the Paris National Opera in the rehearsals and performances of Tristán and Isolde by Richard Wagner. During his stay in Venezuela, he will lead the Juan José Landaeta Orchestra (formerly the Teresa Carreño Symphony Orchestra), of which he is Musical Director; of the Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, and of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, the main formation and flagship of the System of Children and Youth Orchestras of Venezuela.
The calendar of this extensive presence at the head of the formations of EL SISTEMA begins on November 20 with the Juan José Landaeta Symphony Orchestra, to which he will conduct a program that includes Wolf Totem, Concert for double bass and orchestra by Tan Dun with Edicson Ruiz on double bass and Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. On November 26, he will lead the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra with which he will perform Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso by Camille Saint-Saëns with Thibault Vieux on violin and 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 with the Gaêlica y la Bolívar group, he will conduct an extraordinary concert entitled A Night of Light. On December 7, this time with the Venezuelan Symphony, he will conduct the Overture to The Marriage of Figaro and the Concert in A Major for clarinet and orchestra, both by W. A. Mozart, with clarinetist Andrés Nieves, and Symphony No. 9, New World, obyAntonín Dvořák. And on December 16 he will close this journey again with Bolívar and the participation of the Simón Bolívar National Choir conducting the Te Deum by Hector Berlioz.
Christian Vasquez has been Music Director of the Stavanger Orchestra in Norway, Principal Guest Conductor of the Gävle Symphony in Sweden and the Het Gelders Orkest in the Netherlands and currently holds the title of the Juan José Landaeta Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, heir to the Teresa Carreño Youth Symphony Orchestra. Vásquez comes from conducting the Tongyeong Festival Orchestra at the Isangyun International Cello Competition in South Korea
Marina Heredia will sing at the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin next Wednesday, November 23, accompanied by her usual collaborators José Quevedo ‘Bolita’ on guitar and Paquito González on percussion, as special guests of Avi Avital and his Between Worlds Ensemble in a program dedicated to the music of the Iberian Peninsula that includes arrangements of classical compositions by Falla, Albéniz and Granados together with flamenco pieces and other popular music in new arrangements made especially for the occasion.
Mandolinist Avi Avital has long enjoyed crossing musical boundaries. This season, he brings a series of three concerts to the Pierre Boulez Saal that reflect his broad inspiration and interests. Between Worlds is an exploration of different genres, cultures and musical worlds: at the center of the project is the Between Worlds Ensemble, founded by Avital in 2014 and made up of ten classically trained musicians who are equally comfortable in non-classical repertoire. For each of the three concerts, this core group will be joined by various artists or an ensemble representing a specific cultural and geographic region from around the world, in programs that include classical pieces as well as traditional and folk music in newly created arrangements. “The feeling of being at home in places that seem strange and even discovering aspects of yourself is an idea that I find very moving,” says Avital. “That philosophy is at the heart of this project.” To open the cycle, Marina Heredia, one of the most fascinating voices of current flamenco, will become part of the Between Worlds Ensemble, together with José Quevedo “Bolita” and Paquito González in a program dedicated to the music of the Iberian Peninsula.
Marina Heredia has just inaugurated her artistic residence in the season of the Duisburger Philharmoniker with which she sang El Amor Brujo by Falla and as soon as she gets off the plane from Berlin she will join the Radio TV Spanish Orchestra for the rehearsals of El Amor Brujo, which she will sing on December 2 at the Kursaal Theater in Melilla under the direction of conductor Isabel Rubio. This first visit to Duisburg included a concert by her quintet, various educational activities and a round table on flamenco. In a second visit that will take place in June 2023, the world premiere of En Libertad will take place under the direction of Josep Pons, a new work commissioned by the orchestra and composed together by José Quevedo ‘Bolita’ and Joan Albert Amargós, on texts by Quevedo himself, based on an idea by Marina Heredia. As on the first occasion, the concert with the orchestra will be accompanied by a new show by her flamenco company and related activities.
Marina Heredia will be artist-in-residence of the Duisburger Philharmoniker in the 2022/23 symphony season. After a season that saw her debuts with the Orquesta da Casa da Música do Porto or the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin, and a summer that took her to the Granada International Music and Dance Festival and to Hamburg as a guest of the Martha Argerich Festival at the Laieszhalle of the Elbphilharmonie, Marina begun this season at the Lausitz Festival in Görlitz, the Seville Biennale or the inaugural concert of the Navarra Symphony Orchestra season, which was also the presentation of maestro Perry So as its new Musica and artistic Director, Marina will visit Duisburg up to four occasions to offer various concerts, both with the orchestra and with his flamenco company.
Marina’s residency begins with the quintessential work for cantaora with symphony orchestra, El Amor Brujo by Manuel de Falla. These concerts will take place at the Mercatorhalle in Duisburg, the orchestra’s usual venue, on November 9 and 10, under the direction of its principal conductor, Axel Kober. Next, on the 12th of that month in the same room, she will offer a flamenco recital with her company in quintet format, accompanied by guitar (José Quevedo ‘Bolita’), percussion (Paquito González) and choir / clapping (Fita Heredia and Anabel Rivera).
The second symphonic date will be at the end of the season and it will be the premiere of En Libertad! a work commissioned by the orchestra, composed jointly by José Quevedo ‘Bolita’ and Joan Albert Amargós, which will be conducted by Josep Pons on June 28 and 29. Quevedo, also the author of the texts, has based himself on the journey of the gypsy people from its original origins in the East to the Iberian Peninsula and, particularly, Andalusia. The residency closes with a new flamenco recital on July 1 whose program is based on the cantaora’s latest album, CAPRICHO, and which will feature the participation of musicians from the Duisburger Philharmoniker as guests along with the company’s musicians.
Perry So returns to the podium of the Navarra Symphony, of which he is the Music and Artistic Director since this season, to conduct a program that includes Bach’s Ricercare a 6, arranged by Anton Webern; Teoton, concerto for sheng and orchestra by Jukka Tiensuu (1948), performed by Wu Wei, the world’s most renowned performer of this Chinese wind instrument, and Beethoven’s Symphony No 3, Op. 55 Eroica.
Perry So was elected principal and artistic director of the Navarra Symphony Orchestra for a period of three years, from this season until the end of the 2024/25 season. Perry So was born in 1982 in Hong Kong, where he received his early musical training in piano, organ, violin, viola, and composition. He received a BA in Comparative Literature from Yale University with a specialization in Central European music and literature of the modernist period, a period in which he founded an academic orchestra and directed the university’s opera company. He studied conducting at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore under the tutelage of Maestro Gustav Meier and in 2008 received the First Prize and the Special Prize at the 5th Edition of the St. Petersburg Prokofiev International Conducting Competition. Following this recognition, he was appointed Assistant Director and then Associate Director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel Conducting Fellow at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and artistic collaborator of the Principality of Asturias Symphony Orchestra, and is also a member of the Conducting Department of Orchestra of the Manhattan School of Music.
Present in concert halls on five continents, Perry So has recently made his debut with the San Francisco Symphony, his operatic debut in Europe was at the Royal Danish Opera with The Magic Flute, and his American debut at the Yale Opera with Eugene Onegin. Some notable performances include a tour of Italy with the Nuremberg Symphony, a seven-week tour of South Africa leading three different orchestras in which he conducted Verdi’s Requiem in Cape Town as part of the South African National Arts Festival, or his return to the podium of the San Francisco Symphony. He has had a long-standing collaboration with the Royal Danish Theater and the Royal Danish Orchestra both in the concert hall and in the opera and ballet pit. He has been a frequent guest at Walt Disney Hall and the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles and in 2013 toured the Balkan Peninsula leading the Zagreb Philharmonic in the first series of cultural exchanges established after the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Other debuts in recent years include appearances with the Cleveland and Minnesota Orchestras, the Navarra, Malaga, Tenerife, Nuremberg, Israel, New Zealand, Houston, Detroit, New Jersey and Shanghai Symphony Orchestras, the London Philharmonics, Szezcin, Seoul and China, the Residentie Orkest in The Hague and the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie in Koblenz. His recording studio work covers a wide cross-section of 20th century British, French and Russian music with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the BBC Concert Orchestra, and his album of Barber and Korngold Violin Concertos with Alexander Gilman and the Cape Town Philharmonic he received the Diapason d’Or in January 2012. His wide-ranging musical interests include numerous world premieres on four continents, as well as the reintroduction of Renaissance and Baroque repertoire into symphonic programmes, most notably championing the works of Jean-Philippe Rameau. His work with young musicians has taken him to the Australian Youth Orchestra, the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, the Round Top Festival, the Manhattan School of Music, the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts and the Yale School of Music. . Perry, his wife Anna, and his daughter Caroline divide their time between Boston, Saint Paul, where Anna is a professor of history of science at the University of Minnesota, and Pamplona.
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.
Manuel Hernández-Silva returns to Valencia on November 3 to conduct the fifth subscription concert of the Orquesta de Valencia, with which he made his debut just nine months ago. This concert, which is also part of the II Iturbi Piano Festival, will take place at the Teatro Principal, and brings together soloists Carlos Apellániz, piano; Diego Ares, harpsichord; Claudio Carbó, piano; Maria Linares, piano; Oscar Oliver, piano; Antonio Simón, fortepiano and piano; and Xavier Torres, piano, to tackle a repertoire that includes: Johann Sebastian Bach’s Concerto for four keyboards and orchestra in A minor, BWV 1065; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Concerto for three pianos and orchestra in F major, KV 242; Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Concerto for harpsichord, fortepiano and orchestra in E flat major, H 479; Franz Liszt’s Totentanz. Danse Macabre, S 126; and Sergei Prokofiev’s Concerto for piano and orchestra No. 4, in B flat major for the left hand, Op. 53.
Manuel Hernández-Silva closed last season with significant debuts in orchestras such as the Orchestre National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine and the Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, important premieres such as Stabat Mater by Moreno Buendía, or Salseando, by Roberto Sierra and Concerto Venezolano by Paquito D’ Rivera, both with Pacho Flores as soloist. He also returned to orchestras such as the Gran Canaria Philharmonic, the Buenos Aires Philharmonic or the Colombian National Symphony Orchestra.
At the beginning of this season, Manuel Hernández-Silva keeps the pulse with debuts at the Bogotá Sacred Music Festival or the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra, followed throughout the season with the Tucson Symphony in the USA, the Orchestre National du Pays de la Loire in France, the Arctic Philharmonic in Norway or the Galician Symphony in Spain. He will also return to the Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chilean National Philharmonic or the Colombian National Philharmonic, in addition to projects with young people, so dear to him, such as the Musikene Orchestra and the Galician Symphony Youth Orchestra.
Pacho Flores makes his debut with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (New York) under the direction of its Music Director JoAnn Falletta with a program that includes Haydn’s trumpet concerto and Arturo Márquez’s Concierto de Otoño. The concerts will take place on October 28 and 29 at the Kleinhans Music Hall in the city of Buffalo. This is the first stop on a brief US tour that will also take him to New Hampshire and California, with Arturo Márquez’s Concierto de Otoño as a kind of common thread.
In New Hampshire, he will stop at the Hopkins Center for the Arts of Dartmouth College, in the city of Hanover, to present, together with the Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble, the world premiere of his own work Cantos y Revueltas as well as of the Concierto de Otoño, both in arrangement for symphonic band. The first piece, in which he will be accompanied by Venezuelan cuatro player Héctor Molina, will be conducted by Brian E. Messier, and the second by Luis Manuel Sánchez. The concert will take place on November 1 at the Spaulding Auditorium.
He will then travel to California for his third debut on this tour, this time with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Carlos Miguel Prieto, with which he will again perform Arturo Márquez’s Concierto de Otoño at the Davis Symphony Hall on November 5. The Concierto de Otoño, commissioned by the National Orchestra of Mexico, the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, the Hyogo Pac Orchestra of Japan and the Oviedo Filarmonía, is part of Pacho’s latest album for Deutsche Grammophon, ESTIRPE, together with Paquito D’Rivera’s Concerto Venezolano, Concierto Mestizo by Efraín Oscher and Crónicas Latinoamericanas by Daniel Freiberg, in addition to Morocota, a brief Venezuelan waltz by Pacho himself, recorded with Carlos Miguel Prieto and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería.
