Pacho Flores conducts the absolute premiere of Leo Rondón’s Concierto del mar for Venezuelan cuatro and orchestra, with the Orquesta Sinfónica de la Región de Murcia, on Sunday, April 24. This is probably the first or one of the first concerts for Venezuelan cuatro and orchestra ever written. The cuatro, a descendent of the guitar, smaller in size and with four strings (hence its name, cuatro), is an instrument of Venezuelan and Colombian popular music, although there are some differences between one and the other. In recent years and thanks to a brilliant generation of performers, among whom Leo Rondón stands out, this instrument has been gaining presence in the orchestral music scene. Pacho Flores himself gave it an important presence in his work Cantos y Revueltas, fantasia concertante for trumpet, Venezuelan cuatro and strings, in which Rondón was in charge of the cuatro solo part, and which both recorded together for Deutsche Grammophon with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia under Manuel Hernández-Silva.
Leo Rondón has a long history of collaborations and has worked with ensembles such as Quatuor Debussy, Christina Pluhar’s L’Arpeggiata or the Mexican tenor Rolando Villazón, as well as with orchestras such as the Real Filharmonía de Galicia, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Orchestre National de l’Ile de France, Orquesta Sinfónica de la Región de Murcia, Valencia Orchestra, Sinfónica de Castilla y León, Extremadura Symphony Orchestra, Navarre Symphony Orchestra, Tunisia Symphony Orchestra or the Malaga Philharmonic, and he will soon make his debut with the Gran Canaria Philharmonic, with future commitments in Sweden and Norway. Naturally, he also keeps one foot in traditional music, collaborating with the Alexis Cárdenas quartet and other ensembles. Concierto del mar is his first symphonic work.
Pacho, for his part, has already some experience as a conductor and he is increasingly delving deeper into this facet. He has conducted the International Trumpet Guild Festival Orchestra in San Antonio, Texas; the Kammerensemble Konsonanz of Bremen in the recording of trumpeter Fabio Brum’s album EGREGORE for Naxos, in which he also acts as musical producer; or the Brass Ensemble of the Bogotá Philharmonic. Pacho is also an active composer. In addition to the aforementioned Cantos y Revueltas, other compositions include Musas y Resuello, for brass ensemble and percussion and premiered in Bogotá; Heterónimos, for trumpet and small orchestra, included in the album by Fabio Brum and which, together with Preludio y Fuga for strings, will have its absolute premiere at this concert in Murcia; or Albares, the new concerto for flugelhorn that will be premiered next April with the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra under Christian Vásquez, in addition to other works recorded on his album ENTROPÍA such as Morocota,Labios vermelhos, etc.
Pacho Flores and Leo Rondón appear in the concert season of the Castilla y León Symphony Orchestra (OSCyL) together with maestro Carlos Miguel Prieto, with whom they will perform at the Miguel Delibes Cultural Center in Valladolid (April 8 and 9), as well as at the Festival de Música Sacra de Segovia (April 7) and the Semana de Música Religiosa de Cuenca (April 11). Flores and Rondón participate as soloists in two works on the program. The first of them is the Concerto Venezolano, by Paquito D’Rivera, in which will be the first performance of this piece after the series of premieres by the four orchestras that participated in its commission (Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería with C. M. Prieto; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Domingo Hindoyan; Valencia Orchestra under Manuel Hernández-Silva; and San Diego Symphony with Rafael Payare) has been completed.
The second piece is Cantos y Revueltas. Fantasía concertante para trompeta, cuatro venezolano y cuerdas, by Pacho Flores himself, in which he shares the leading role with Leo Rondón and his Venezuelan cuatro. It was premiered by the Real Filharmonía de Galicia under Manuel Hernández-Silva and recorded live for a double CD/DVD by Deutsche Grammophon.
D’Rivera’s Concerto Venezolano is part of an ambitious project to expand the repertoire for solo trumpet and orchestra that involves, in addition to D’Rivera, other outstanding composers such as Arturo Márquez, Roberto Sierra, Christian Lindberg, Efraín OScher, Daniel Freiberg or Gabriela Ortiz. Orchestras from all over the world have become involved in this project of shared commissions, and these new concerts are being premiered from the USA, Mexico and Brazil in America to Turkey and Japan in Asia, across Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Norway in Europe. The performance of these concerts requires a wide variety of new four-piston instruments in various keys —trumpets, cornets and flugelhorns, some of them authentic prototypes—, which are provided by the Spanish company STOMVI and in whose development Pacho actively participates together with its engineers.
Pacho Flores and Paquito D’Rivera recording D’Rivera’s Concerto Venezolano
Pacho Flores and Leo Rondón will soon collaborate again at the premiere of the Concierto del Mar, for Venezuelan cuatro and orchestra, with Pacho Flores conducting the Orquesta Sinfónica de la Región de Murcia and Rondón as soloist. This absolute premiere will take place at the Víctor Villegas Auditorium in Murcia on Sunday, April 24, but it will not be the only absolute premiere of the program, as other works by Pacho Flores, such as Preludio y fuga para cuerdas, composed expressly for the occasion, and Heterónimos, for trumpet and orchestral ensemble, will also be premiered. Heterónimos, though already recorded, has never been performed in public. Inspired by writings of Fernando Pessoa, it is dedicated to the trumpeter Fabio Brum, who recorded it for Naxos in the album EGREGORE, in which Pacho acted as producer and conductor of the orchestra.
Pacho Flores performs the Brazilian premiere of Salseando, by Roberto Sierra, with the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo under Carlos Miguel Prieto, next March 31 and April 1 and 2 at the Sala São Paulo. The program also includes the Concerto for corno da caccia by Johann Baptist Georg Neruda. This will be the third premiere of Salseando after those in the United Kingdom by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic under Domingo Hindoyan (January 2020) and in Spain with the Murcia Region Symphony Orchestra conducted by Manuel Hernandez-Silva (December 2020). This series of premieres is resumed this season after the cancellations due to the COVID19 pandemic, and will conclude with the premiere in France by the Orchestra National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine, again under the direction of Hernández-Silva (June 2022).
Salseando is part of the project of shared commissions for new trumpet concerts that Pacho Flores himself is promoting with outstanding composers such as Arturo Márquez, Paquito D’Rivera, Efraín Oscher, Roberto Sierra, Christian Lindberg, Daniel Freiberg and Gabriela Ortiz. These premieres, with the delays caused by the pandemic, have been taking place uninterruptedly since September 2018, when the first premiere by Arturo Márquez took place, and will for now last until December 2023, when the last premiere by Gabriela Ortiz will take place.
A total number of 24 orchestras from all over the world will have participated in this project of shared commissions for new concerts, whose premieres will have taken place from the USA to Japan across Mexico, Brazil, United Kingdom, Spain, France, Norway, Sweden or Turkey. The concerts have been specifically composed for the incredible technical skills of Pacho Flores and for the variety of instruments, some of them real prototypes, that the Spanish manufacturer STOMVI puts at his disposal. These new instruments, with four pistons and in various keys, are the result of a constant research and development work in which Pacho is personally involved together with the STOMVI engineers, led by Vicente Honorato, president and alma mater of the company.
Marina Heredia will perform Manuel de Falla’s El Amor Brujo with the Casa da Música Orchestra in Porto under its principal conductor, Stefan Blunier, next 25 March at 21:30 p.m. at the sumptuous auditorium built by Rem Koolhaas, after the success of her Berlin debut with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Pablo Heras Casado.
Recently, Marina has participated in a concert tour around Galicia with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia under José Trigueros, presenting a new orchestration by the conductor himself of the Canciones Españolas Antiguas, compiled and harmonized by Federico García Lorca.
Marina Heredia has become the most internationally requested cantaora to perform El Amor Brujo by Manuel de Falla, which she has sung in some of the most prestigious international venues with important ensembles such as the San Francisco and Chicago Symphony Orchestras. In Europe she has performed it with the Rouen Opera and the Orchestre National de Lille, and more recently in Spain at the Teatro Real in Madrid, Palacio de Festivales in Santander, Auditorio ADDA in Alicante, Cidade da Cultura in Santiago or the Auditorio Manuel de Falla in Granada, with orchestras such as the Sinfónica de Galicia, RTVE Orchestra, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada or ADDA Orchestra, and under conductors such as Manuel Hernández-Silva, Josep Vicent or Pablo Heras Casado, with whom she has also recorded it for Harmonia Mundi.
Manuel Hernández-Silva and Serbian violinist Robert Lakatoš meet again, this time with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia, to offer Wieniawski’s Concerto No. 1 along with the overture A Life for the Tsar, by Glinka, and Kalinnikov’s Symphony No. 1. The concerts will take place at the Centro Cultural Abanca in Vigo and the Auditorio de Galicia in Santiago de Compostela on March 16 and 17, respectively. Hernández-Silva and Lakatoš had already performed Shostakovich’s Concerto No. 1 together with the Navarre Symphony Orchestra and the Malaga Philharmonic. Other visits by Lakatoš to Spain involved James Judd and the RTVE Orchestra with Korngold’s violin concert, and Nicholas Milton and the Navarra Symphony with the Serenade for violin, strings and percussion by Leonard Bernstein.
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.
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