Trumpeter Pacho Flores will perform at the world premiere of a new trumpet concert next Monday, September 20 at 19:30 at the Barbican Center in London, United Kingdom. This premiere is the result of a commission, inspired by Pacho Flores himself, from Peter Ash, artistic director of the London Schools Symphony Orchestra, to Eleanor Alberga, an Afro-Caribbean composer (Kingston, Jamaica, 1949) of British nationality and residence.
Eleanor Alberga is a highly regarded British composer with commissions from the BBC Proms and the Royal Opera at Covent Garden. After studying piano and singing at the Royal Academy of Music in London, she began a career as a pianist which was then redirected to composition when she arrived at the London Contemporary Dance Theatre in 1978. After leaving the LCDT, she was able to focus entirely on composing, and since then the interest in her music has only increased. In 2015 her work ARISE, ATHENA!, commissioned by the PROMS for the opening of the Last Night, consolidated her international reputation as a composer of enormous talent and originality. Alberga has won several awards, including a NESTA Scholarship in 2000 and a Paul Hamlyn Award in 2019. In 2020 she was elected member of the Royal Academy of Music and in 2021 she received the Order of the British Empire for her services to music.
This new world premiere is, once again, the first of many to come for Pacho Flores along this 2021/22 season. He will afterwards perform the Swedish premiere of Caballos Mágicos, a trumpet concert by trombonist, conductor and composer Christian Lindberg, with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and the composer himself at the podium. This piece had its world premiere last May in Santiago de Compostela (Spain) together with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia and its principal conductor Paul Daniel. During his stay in Sweden, Pacho will participate in the recording of an album with works by Lindberg, including this same concert as well as Un Sueño Morisco, a double concerto for trumpet and trombone commissioned and premiered by the ORTVE, with Ximo Vicedo on the trombone and the composer as conductor. In October, Pacho will premiere Historias de Flores y Tangos, by Daniel Freiberg, with the Oviedo Filarmonía and Lucas Macías. In November, he will return to the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Domingo Hindoyan for the British premieres of Concierto venezolano, by Paquito D’Rivera, and Pacho’s own work Cantos y Revueltas, in which he will be accompanied by the cuatrista Leo Rondón. Later on, in February 2022, he will perform the Spanish and US premiere of Paquito D’Rivera’s concert, with the San Diego Symphony under Rafael Payare and the Valencia Orchestra under Hernández-Silva, respectively; and between March and April the Brazilean premiere of Roberto Sierra’s concert Salseando, with the Sinfónica do Estado de São Paulo and Carlos Miguel Prieto, which will then see its French premiere in June with the Orchestre National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine and Manuel Hernández-Silva. After this, Pacho will return to Spain to premiere Concierto Mambí, by Igmar Alderete, with the Córdoba Orchestra and its principal conductor, Domínguez-Nieto.
Arturo Márquez’s Concierto de Otoño will be premiered in France by Pacho Flores and the Orchestre National de Lille under conductor Josep Vicent. Concerts will take place at the Auditorium du Nouveau Siècle, in Lille, on Thursday, 5, Boulogne-sur-Mer Théâtre on Friday, 6 and at L’Imaginaire in Douchy-les-Mines on Saturday, 7, December 2019. The program, entitled Eldorado, contains also works by Revueltas, Falla and Ravel. This Concierto de Otoño by Arturo Márquez was co-commissioned by four orchestras: National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Hyogo PAC Orchestra of Japan and Oviedo Philharmonia in Spain.
It was premiered along the 2018/19 season with conductors Carlos Miguel Prieto, José Luis Gómez, Michiyoshi Inoue and Lucas Macías respectively, and since then it was played by the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería (Mexico) and the Opening Night Gala of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, both with C. M. Prieto; Filarmónica de Bogotá (Colombian premiere), Christian Vásquez; Colorado Springs Philharmonic, Josep Caballé Doménech; and Real Filharmonía de Galicia, with Manuel Hernández-Silva, together with the absolute premiere of Efraín Oscher’s Danzas Latinas; after Lille, the Concierto de Otoño is already programmed by the Winnipeg Symphony (Canadian premiere), José Luis Gómez; Liverpool Philharmonic (UK premiere), Domingo Hindoyan, together with the concerto Salseando by Roberto Sierra, UK premiere as well; Orquesta de Córdoba, Carlos Domínguez-Nieto, together with the absolute premiere of Concierto Mambí by Igmar Alderete; and some other orchestras to be announced.
D. Freiberg, A. Márquez, P. D’Rivera, P. Flores and C. M. Prieto during the recording of Mestizo for Deutsche Grammophon
Arturo Márquez’s Concierto de Otoño is the very first of a large and ambitious project of co-commissions of new trumpet concertos to outstanding composers as Paquito D’Rivera, Roberto Sierra, Efraín Oscher, Christian Lindberg and Daniel Freiberg involving orchestras form all around the world. Paquito D’Rivera’s Concerto Venezolano was premiered by the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería with Carlos Miguel Prieto and is going to be premiered soon by the San Diego Symphony Orchestra with Rafael Payare and Orquesta of Valencia in Spain with Vicent Alberola; and Roberto Sierras’ Salseando will be premiered on next January by the Royal Liverpool Symphony Orchestra and Domingo Hindoyan and about the summer by the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra and Giancarlo Guerrero.
Pacho Flores has just premiered Danzas Latinas by Efraín Oscher with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia and Manuel Hernández-Silva in a concert that also included Arturo Márquez’s Concierto de Otoño, the same week he launched his newest recording for Deutsche Grammophon, Cantos y Revueltas, with the same partners, Real Filharmonía and conductor Hernández-Silva. Cantos y Revueltas is also the title of the main work of the recording, a Fantasía Concertante for trumpet and Venezuelan cuatro, played in the premiere and the recording by the Venezuelan virtuoso Leo Rondón.
Pacho Flores faces the Asian premiere of Arturo Márquez’s Concierto de otoño with the Hyogo PAC Orchestra of Japan under Michiyoshi Inoue, that will take place on 24, 25 and 26 May. The concert was previously premiered by the National Orchestra of Mexico under Carlos Miguel Prieto (watch video) and the Tucson Symphony Orchestra under José Luis Gómez, with extraordinary success. The European premiere by the Oviedo Filarmonía and its new principal conductor Lucas Macías will close the round of premieres on 14 August. This concert has attracted the interest of many orchestras and has already been scheduled for the 19/20 and 20/21 seasons in the United States, Colombia, Spain, France, England, Canada and Australia, adding up to 30 performances only in its first three years. Some of them are the Opening Night Gala of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, with C. M. Prieto; Filarmónica de Bogotá (Colombian premiere), Christian Vásquez; Colorado Springs Philharmonic, Josep Caballé Doménech; Real Filharmonía de Galicia, with Manuel Hernández-Silva, together with the absolute premiere of Efraín Oscher’s new Trumpet concerto; Orchestre National de Lille (French premiere), Josep Vicent; Winnipeg Symphony (Canadian premiere), José Luis Gómez; Liverpool Philharmonic (UK premiere), Domingo Hindoyan, together with the Concierto Salseando by Roberto Sierra, UK premiere as well; Orquesta de Córdoba, Carlos Domínguez-Nieto, together with the absolute premiere of Concierto Mambí by Igmar Alderete; and some other orchestras to be announced.
The commission is part of an ambitious Project of Shared Commissions launched by Pacho Flores himself in order to enlarge the trumpet and orchestra repertoire. It is the first of six commissions to composers Roberto Sierra, Paquito D’Rivera, Efrain Oscher, Christian Lindberg and Daniel Freiberg, involving orchestras from all around the world to premiere these works over the coming seasons. All the concerts resulting from this project will increase Pacho Flores’ discography on his label Deutsche Grammophon.
After its premiere in Liverpool, Salseando will later be premiered in Brazil and other two countries. The Concierto Venezolano by Paquito D’Rivera will also be premiered on 2 September 2019 in Mexico (orchestra and conductor to be announced soon), and afterwards in the United States, Spain and the United Kingdom.
In parallel, Pacho Flores continues receiving new concert dedications and performing premieres. Only during the last year, Pacho has premiered his own work, Cantos y revueltas (January 2018, Real Filharmonía de Galicia, Manuel Hernández-Silva); the concert Stunning Trumpet by Giancarlo Castro (February 2018, Ulster Orchestra, Rafael Payare); Preach pour trompette et orchestre, by Alain Trudel (March 2018, Orchester Symphonique de Laval, Alain Trudel); Double concerto for clarinet and trumpet (August 2018, Norddeutsche Philharmonie Rostock, Markus Bosch); Latin American Chronicles by Daniel Freiberg (January 2019, Het Gelders Orkest, Christian Vásquez); and the new Double concert for trumpet and trombone by Christian Lindberg (March 2019, RTVE Orchestra, Ximo Vicedo and Christian Lindberg); and he plans to premiere the Trumpet Concerto No. 1 by Arturo Sandoval (July 2019, Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra, Enrique Diemecke).
