FRACTALES, new Pacho Flores’ recording for DG

FRACTALES, new Pacho Flores’ recording for DG

Pacho Flores, together with Christian Lindberg and the Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra, presents his new Deutsche Grammophon recording FRACTALES. Recorded last May at the Stormen Hall in Bodo, one of the Norwegian orchestra’s headquarters, FRACTALES includes trumpet masterpieces such as Haydn and Arutunian concertos, the astonishing contemporary composition Akban Bunka by Christian Lindberg and some of the key works in Pacho’s repertoire such as his own transcription of Sarasate’s Gypsy Airs and Efraín Oscher’s arrangements of Tom Jobim’s Chega de Saudade and Piazzolla’s Oblivion.

FRACTALES is Pacho’s third recording for Deutsche Grammophon following CANTAR, recorded with the Berlin Funkhausorchester and Christian Vásquez and ENTROPÍA, with guitarist Jesús ‘Pingüino’ González. Some of the works included in this recording will be played in the tour presentation concerts in Bodo and Tromso, Norway (Haydn and Arutunian), the Amsterdam Concertgebouw (Haydn) and the ADDA Auditorium in Alicante, Spain (Lindberg).

Pacho Flores portada de disco Fractales

As well as professional partners, Pacho and Christian are very good friends and FRACTALES is not their only project together. Christian, trombonist, composer and conductor, is writing a new Double Concerto for trumpet and trombone that will be premiered on March 21 and 22, 2019, with Christian conducting the Spanish Radio and Television Orchestra and Ximo Vicedo on trombone. He is also collaborating with Pacho in his Project of Shared Commissions of New Trumpet Concertos.

Pacho Flores composición portadas Deutsche Grammophon

With regard to this project, Arturo Márquez’s Concierto de Otoño has already been premiered by the National Orchestra of Mexico and Carlos Miguel Prieto and further premieres are planned with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra and José Luis Gómez in the USA, with the Hyogo PAC Orchestra and Michiyoshi Inoue in Japan and with the Oviedo Filarmonía and Lucas Macías in Spain. New concertos by Roberto Sierra, Paquito D’Rivera, Efraín Oscher and Christian Lindberg will be premiered in the coming seasons. Following FRACTALES, Pacho is already working on new recording projects.

Pacho Flores y Christian Lindberg sonriendo Fractales

 

 

 

Pacho Flores premieres Arturo Márquez’s trumpet concerto

Pacho Flores premieres Arturo Márquez’s trumpet concerto

On September the 7th and 9th, Pacho Flores will play the first of four premieres of Arturo Marquez‘s new Concierto de Otoño for trumpet and orchestra, with the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico and its Chief Conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico D. F. This premiere is the result of a shared commission between the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, the Hyogo PAC Orchestra (Japan) and the Oviedo Filarmonía (Spain).

The four premieres will take place as follows:

September, 7/9, 2018 – National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, conductor, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico DF

January, 25/27, 2019 – Tucson Symphony Orchestra, conductor, José Luis Gómez, Tucson Music Hall

May, 24/25/26, 2019 – Hyogo PAC Orchestra (Japan), conductor, Michiyoshi Inoue; Hyogo Performing Arts center 

August, 14, 2019 – Oviedo Filarmonía (Spain), conductor, Lucas Macías, Auditorio Príncipe Felipe, Oviedo

Arturo Márquez (Álamos, Sonora, 1950) is without discussion the most important Mexican composer alive. He wrote masterpieces such as Danzón nº 2 (1994) or Conga del Fuego (2005), which gave him international relevance. He joins a distinguished lineage of Mexican composers like Silvestre Revueltas or Carlos Chávez, who based their music on the traditions and genres of Mexican popular music. Maestro Márquez was given the Prize of the Fine Arts by the Mexican Government in 2009. 

Arturo_Márquez_Pacho_Flores_Proyecto_Encargos_Compartidos

Arturo Márquez

The Concierto de Otoño (Autumn Concerto) is 16 minutes long and was composed between January – June of 2018. It has three movements: Son de luz, Balada de floripondios and Conga de Flores, and requires the use of four trumpets: trumpet in C in the first; flugelhorn and Hornet in F in the second; and trumpet in D in the third. Even before its first premiere, several orchestras have already shown interest in programming the piece once the four premieres would be done by each of the four commissioning orchestras.

Pacho Flores. Project of shared commissions

This premiere is the first of an ambitious project by Pacho Flores to create shared commissions spanning across several seasons that extend the repertoire of solo trumpet and orchestra. In addition to Arturo Márquez, four prominent composers such as Roberto Sierra, Paquito D’Rivera, Efraín Oscher and Christian Lindberg, have joined Pacho in this project.

Pacho Flores. Composición compositores Márquez, Sierra, D'Rivera, Oscher, Lindberg

Left to right and top to bottom: Arturo Márquez, Roberto Sierra, Paquito D’Rivera, Efraín OScher and Christian Lindberg

Orchestras from all around the world (Puerto Rico, Brazil, Mexico, United States, Japan, United Kingdom, Sweden, Spain…) are joining this project, which, at its end, will have reunited twenty orchestras and thus, the same number of premieres. Besides leading this project, Pacho Flores is also premiering new trumpet concertos and beginning a career as a composer. Between his last and next premieres we can mention:

Pacho Flores: Cantos y revueltas (11/12/13 January 2018, Real Filharmonía de Galicia, Manuel Hernández-Silva)

Giancarlo Castro: Trumpet concerto (23 February 2018, Ulster Orchestra, Rafael Payare). 

Alain Trudel: Preach, pour trompette et orchestre (14 March 2018, Orch. Symphonique de Laval, Alain Trudel)

Efraín Oscher: Apex, double concerto for clarinet and trumpet (29 August 2018, Matthias Schorn, Norddeutsche Philharmonie Rostock, Marcus Bosch)

Daniel Freiberg: Latin American Chronicles Concerto (4/5/6 January 2019, Het Gelders Orkest, Christian Vásquez)

Christian Lindberg: Double concerto for trumpet and trombone (21/22 March 2019, Orquesta de RTVE, Christian Lindberg; Ximo Vicedo, trombone).

 

 

 

Pacho Flores, debut and premiere in Canada

Pacho Flores, debut and premiere in Canada

Glorieuse trompette is the title that the Orchestre Symphonique de Laval gave to the debut concert of Pacho Flores in Canada, in which he will premiere Preach, pour trompette et orchestre by Alain Trudel. The program includes as well some of Flores’ warhorses as the Concerto for Corno da Caccia by J. B. G. Neruda, Soledad, by Efraín Oscher or Invierno Porteño (Winter in Buenos Aires) by Piazzolla, arranged by Oscher. This will be the third Flores’ absolute premiere in 2018, after his own Cantos y Revueltas with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia and conductor Manuel Hernández-Silva in January and the Trumpet Concerto by Giancarlo Castro with the Ulster Orchestra and conductor Rafael Payare in February.

But the actually intense plan of premieres will begin with the 2018/19 season when the big project of shared commission will start. Determined to expand the range of trumpet repertoire, Pacho Flores is developing an ambitious project of commissions to prominent composers such Arturo Márquez, Roberto Sierra, Paquito D’Rivera, Efraín Oscher and Christian Lindberg. This is a four seasons long plan with orchestras from all over the world. First complete commission is to Arturo Márquez, and the scheduled premieres will be in Mexico (September 2018), USA (January 2019), Japan (May 2019) and Spain (August de 2019). 

Pacho Flores Deutsche_Grammophon

The other commissions are going forward with orchestras already committed in Spain, Mexico and USA again, as well as in Brazil and Puerto Rico. This project will have its culmination with two recordings for Flores’ label, Deutsche Grammophon, including all the new commissioned works. On next April Pacho Flores will record his third CD for the yellow label with Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra and its Music Director Christian Lindberg, including the famous Haydn and Arutunian concertos, Christian Lindberg’s Akban Bunka, and arrangements of works by Pablo Sarasate, Astor Piazzolla and Antonio Carlos Jobim. Besides this large and demanding project, Flores will also premiere the new Christian Lindberg’s Double Concerto for trumpet and trombone in Spain in March, 2019, with trombone player Ximo Vicedo; and Arturo Sandoval’s Trumpet Concerto in Argentina in October, 2019.

 

 

 

Pacho Flores premieres Arturo Márquez’s trumpet concerto

Review on Pacho Flores in Belfast

Review on Pacho Flores in Belfast. Ulster Orchestra’s stunning new concerto gives nod to classic jazz of Fifties. 

By Alf McCreary, Belfast Telegraph

When the world premiere of a concerto is announced nowadays, some people wince in case it is another of those technically brilliant pieces which turns out to be utterly boring. Thankfully, this was not the case with Giancarlo Castro’s Concerto, titled Stunning Trumpet, premiered in the Ulster Hall by the Ulster Orchestra and its music director Rafael Payare to stunning effect. This concerto was played with remarkable skill and gusto on not one, but four trumpets (though not at the same time) by soloist Pacho Flores.

He has deep roots in Latin America, and he and Payare played together in the well-known Simon Bolivar Orchestra in Venezuela. The music of Castro’s new Trumpet Concerto is deeply embedded in the Latin American, jazz and cinema tradition, and it is captivating from start to finish. The concerto is bursting with many different melodies and rhythms, and for most of the piece the Ulster Orchestra played like a Fifties Big Band swinging its way through a major jazz concert. One hopes that Stunning Trumpet will soon be on CD to enrich many a car journey. For good measure, the soloist underlined his range by playing Neruda’s delightful 18th century Trumpet Concerto, and ended in the Latin-American idiom with Piazzolla’s charming Winter in Buenos Aires.

The wide-ranging concert began with the wistful and dreamlike Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un faune, to mark the centenary of the death of Debussy, who also wrote the celebrated La Mer – even if he was unable to swim. The warmly-received concert ended with a riveting performance of the Hungarian Bela Bartok’s orchestral showpiece Concerto for Orchestra, a work of genius written in only eight weeks by the composer who was suffering from leukaemia and died tragically just two years later at the age of 64. Maestro Payare has been appointed as full-time music director of the San Diego Symphony from the autumn of 2019, so catch this world-class young conductor in Belfast while you can.

 

 

 

Pacho Flores, premiere in Santiago with Hernández-Silva

Pacho Flores, premiere in Santiago with Hernández-Silva

Trumpet player Pacho Flores and conductor Manuel Hernández-Silva will premiere Pacho Flores’ new composition, Cantos y revueltas, with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia in Santiago, Vigo and Coruña on next January the 11th, 12th and 13th, 2018. The piece, for solo trumpet, strings and ‘Venezuelan cuatro’, is based on folk tunes and work chants of the reach Venezuelan folklore. They will be supported by cuatro player Leo Rondón. Besides the premier, Pacho will also play Neruda’s Concerto for corno da caccia, and Villalobos’ Aria, from the Brazilian Bachiana nº 5.

composición de fotos de pacho flores y manuel hernández-silva

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.

pacho flores composición portadas y premio

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.