The American premiere of Pacho Flores’ work Cantos y Revueltas. Fantasia Concertante for trumpets, Venezuelan cuatro and strings with the Bolívar Phil and cuatro player Héctor Molina under maestro Carlos Riazuelo will take place next June 30 at 11:00 am at the Herbert and Nicole Wertheim Performing Arts Center in Miami. Cantos y Revueltas was premiered on January 11, 2018 at the Auditorio de Galicia in Santiago de Compostela with the Royal Philharmonic of Galicia and two other Venezuelans —conductor Manuel Hernández-Silva and cuatro player Leo Rondón—, to great success from both audience and critics. This premiere was recorded in audio and video and will be the central piece of the next album by Pacho Flores, a double CD/DVD for Deutsche Grammophon that will be coming soon. However, this isn’t Pacho’s first composition, since other works such as Morocota or Labios Vermelhos were already part of his album ENTROPÍA.
Image of the premiere of Cantos y Revueltas, Flores, Rondón, Hernández-Silva and the RFG. Copyright: RFG
Pacho Flores is playing this week with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Gran Canaria, a program that includes Akban Bunka by Christian Lindberg —appearing in FRACTALES, his last album for DG so far— and Concierto Mestizo by Efraín Oscher. He will perform the same repertoire the following week at the 11º Conference of the Brazilian Association of Trumpeters in Campinas.
Flores will then return to Europe to perform Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto and Lindberg’s Akban Bunka with the Sinfonieorchester Basel led by Michal Nesterowicz. After this American premiere in Florida, Cantos y Revueltas will then head for the Southern Cone for another historical premiere in Argentina: the performance by the Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra under Enrique Diemecke of Arturo Sandoval’s Trumpet Concerto No. 1 for the first time since its composition 25 years ago. It will take place on July 11 at Teatro Colón.
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).
Pacho Flores will make his debut with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra on 9 March under the direction of Holly Mathieson, performing some Latin American classics such as Piazzolla, Villalobos or Paquito D’Rivera. On the following day, he will have a meeting with members of the Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and perform as soloist in a concert led by Simon Emery; on 11 March he will take part in a workshop and concert with the Children’s Orchestra. These activities are part of In Harmony’s 10th Birthday celebrations, the RLPO social programme inspired by Venezuela’s El Sistema, where Pacho himself started. This first contact will also have its reflection in the 19/20 Season, as the RLPO is one of the orchestras engaged in the Project of Shared Commissions Pacho Flores is carrying out by commissioning a new trumpet concert to composer Roberto Sierra, together with other orchestras.
Pacho will afterwards continue with his busy schedule with the absolute premiere of Un Sueño Morisco, double concert for trumpet, trombone and orchestra by Christian Lindberg, together with trombonist Ximo Vicedo, the RTVE Orchestra and Lindberg himself as conductor; his return to the Orquesta Filarmónica de Málaga; master classes and recitals in Tampere and Helsinki, including an absolute premiere of Tuomas Turriago; the Japan premiere of Concierto de Otoño by Arturo Márquez as part of the project of shared commissions, with the Hyogo PAC Orchestra and Michiyoshi Inoue; the season closing of the Stavanger Orchestra with Christian Vásquez; Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria with Dmitri Liss; Basel Symphonieorchester with Michał Nesterowicz; absolute premiere of Concierto n.º 1 by Arturo Sandoval with the orchestra of Teatro Colón and Enrique Diemecke; and the European premiere of Concierto de Otoño by Arturo Márquez with the Oviedo Filharmonía and Lucas Macías, which closes the series of commissioned premieres.
Pacho Flores makes his debut with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra under the baton of its Chief Conductor José Luis Gómez for the US premiere of Arturo Márquez’s Concierto de Otoño on January 25 and 27. This is the second premiere following that of last September by the National Orchestra of Mexico and itsChief Conductor, Carlos Miguel Prieto, and pending in Asia are premieres by the Orchestra of the Center of Performing Arts of Hyogo with Michiyoshi Inoue next May, and the European premiere, which will close the cycle next August with the Oviedo Filarmonía under its newChief Conductor Lucas Macías. This is what Maestro Márquez explains on his Concerto (video).
While this second premiere is still pending, other orchestras around the world have already scheduled the Concierto de Otoño to be performed twice during the 2019/20 in the USA, Colombia, where it will be premiered in South America, and three times in Spain before being premiered in France, the UK, Germany and Canada, meaning that in just two seasons, in addition to the four premieres resulting from the commission, it will have been the subject of more than two dozen performances, always, of course, by Pacho Flores.
Arturo Márquez
This commission is part of an ambitious project of shared commissions launched by Pacho Flores himself in order to expand the repertoire of trumpet and orchestra and is the first of six commissions to composers Roberto Sierra, Paquito D’Rivera, Efraín Oscher, Christian Lindberg and Daniel Freiberg, in which ten other orchestras from around the world are already involved for their premieres over the coming seasons. All the concerts resulting from this project will increase the discography of Pacho Flores on his exclusive label Deutsche Grammophon.
In parallel with this project Pacho Flores continues to receive dedications of new concerts and perform absolute premieres. Over 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, Orchestre Symphonique de Laval, Alain Trudel); Double concerto for clarinet and trumpet (August 2018, Norddeutsche Philharmonie Rostock, Markus Bosch, with Matthias Schorn) and Latin American Chronicles by Daniel Freiberg (January 2019, Het Gelders Orkest, Christian Vasquez); and the new Double Concierto for Trumpet and Trombone by Christian Lindberg (March 2019, Orchestra of the Spanish Radio and Television, Christian Lindberg, with Ximo Vicedo) and the Concierto for trumpet no. 1 by Arturo Sandoval (July 2019, Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra, Enrique Diemecke). (Translation: John Eastham)
Leo Rondón, venezuelan Cuatro He took the 3rd place in La Siembra del Cuatro competition in 2007, the 2nd place in 2012 and in 2011 the 2nd place in El Silbón and San Martín. After teaching cuatro soloist, music theory and double bass at Merida School of Music (2003 –...
