Pacho Flores returns to the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, again with its principal conductor, Rafael Payare, to perform at the Rady Shell, the impressive new open-air auditorium in Jacobs Park. If his previous visit in February and March 2022 was for the US premiere of Concerto Venezolano by Paquito D’Rivera, in whose commission the orchestra had participated, this time it is to perform Salseando by Roberto Sierra. This piece was already premiered in the US just a few months ago by the Tucson Symphony Orchestra led by Hernández-Silva. A third visit to San Diego is already scheduled for February 2024 in which Pacho, again with Payare at the podium, will perform in the final premiere of Altar de Bronce by Gabriela Ortiz. In other words, in two years the San Diego Symphony will have scheduled three visits by Pacho Flores, two within the subscription concert season and another one in its summer cycle at the Rady Shell, including three of the new trumpet concertos that are part of the project of shared commissions for new trumpet concerts promoted by Pacho and his agency ACM Concerts. The orchestra has participated in the commission of two of these pieces.
This won’t be Pacho’s only visit to California this summer. In July, after returning from Liverpool, where he will offer the British premiere of Altar de Bronce with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Domingo Hindoyan, Pacho will debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel at the Hollywood Bowl performing Arturo Márquez’s Concierto de otoño. He will still return to North America once more before the end of summer, this time to Mexico, to take part in the American premiere of Altar de Bronce with the Minería Symphony Orchestra and Carlos Miguel Prieto. This piece will later be performed by the New World Symphony, also led by Prieto, before landing in San Diego for the closing of the premiere cycle.
Meanwhile, Pacho is also deepening his facet as a composer and is about to finish a new clarinet concert commissioned by the Galicia Symphony Orchestra, the Extremadura Symphony Orchestra and the Murcia Region Symphony Orchestra. The piece will be premiered by Juan Ferrero under the baton of Christian Vasquez (Galicia and Murcia) and Andrés Salado (Extremadura) throughout the 2023/24 season.