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.
Pacho Flores returns to the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra to continue his artistic residency. After his visit last December, when he took part in five extraordinary Christmas concerts, he will appear this time at a subscription concert that will take place on May 11 at 7:30 p.m. at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, where he will perform Henri Tomasi’s concerto as well as Albares, his own concerto for flugelhorn, all under the baton of Domingo Hindoyan.
The next and last concert of this residency will take place in July with the UK premiere of Altar de Bronce, Gabriela Ortiz’s trumpet concerto that had its World premiere last April with the Galician Symphony Orchestra under Manuel Hernández-Silva, along with Salseando, by Roberto Sierra. That premiere in Galicia was actually also part of an artistic residency, since this season Pacho has been artist-in-residence of these two orchestras, after being last summer at the La Virée Classique festival of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.
Pacho has just arrived from North America, where he presented the continental premieres of the orchestral version of his own work Cantos y Revueltas with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Rafael Payare; and Historias de Flores y Tangos, by Daniel Freiberg, with the Walla Walla Symphony Orchestra under José Luis Gómez. On his return from Liverpool, he will travel to Colombia to perform again Freiberg’s concerto together with Albares under the baton of Christian Vásquez, before facing an intense summer that includes, in addition to the aforementioned third visit to Liverpool, two important debuts in great summer seasons: at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, and at the Rady Shell of the San Diego Symphony with Rafael Payare, where he will perform Concierto de Otoño by Arturo Márquez and Salseando by Roberto Sierra, respectively.
Pacho Flores and Hernández-Silva meet again for a joint debut and a double program with the Galician Symphony Orchestra, where Pacho is artist in residence this season. The first program will be part of the Easter workshop of the Galician Youth Symphony Orchestra and include Concierto de Otoño, by Arturo Márquez, and Albares, a concert for flugelhorn by Pacho himself, together with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4. This concert will take place at the Palacio de la Ópera de Coruña on April 9. The second program, a subscription concert, will feature Kalinnikov’s Symphony No. 1, Paquito de Rivera’s Concerto Venezolano and the world premiere of Altar de Bronce, a trumpet concerto by Gabriela Ortiz dedicated to Pacho and jointly commissioned by the OSG with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Minería Symphony Orchestra, the New World Symphony and the San Diego Symphony. These concerts will take place at the Ferrol Auditorium and the Palacio de la Ópera de A Coruña on April 13 and 14, respectively. A few days later, on April 18, Pacho will offer a chamber recital with the guitarist Jesús ‘Pingüino’ González within the season of the Philharmonic Society of A Coruña as part of his artistic residence with the OSG, performing the repertoire of his album ENTROPÍA. González will also participate as a cuatrista in D’Rivera’s work the previous week.
Gabriela Ortiz is one of the most prominent composers of today. She has received commissions from soloists and orchestras such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, National Orchestra of Britain, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Galician Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony Orchestra, San Diego Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta de Minería, Kroumata and Amadinda Percussion Ensembles, Kronos Quartet, Latin American Quartet, Southwest Chamber Music, Tambuco Percussion Quartet, Hungarian Philharmonic Orchestra, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, etc. Ortiz has been distinguished with the National Prize for Arts and Literature of Mexico, the Mexican Academy of Arts, the First Prize in the Silvestre Revueltas National Chamber Music Contest and the Alicia Urreta Composition Contest, or the Mozart Medal Award, among others.
Pacho Flores with Vicente Honorato, CEO of STOMVI
Altar de Bronce is the seventh trumpet concerto to emerge from the project of shared commissions for new trumpet concertos by prominent composers such as Arturo Márquez, Paquito D’Rivera, Roberto Sierra, Efraín Oscher, Christian Lindberg, Daniel Freiberg and Gabriela Ortiz. A unique peculiarity of Pacho Flores’ concerts is the amount of instruments that he uses. In close collaboration with the R+D department of the STOMVI company, they have jointly developed new prototypes in various keys, all of them with four pistons. If the fourth piston alone manages to widen the tessitura of the instrument, the sum of several of these instruments with low, medium and high registers in each work multiplies both the range as well as the timbre and color in an extraordinary way, since he combines cornets, trumpets and flugelhorn. For these concerts with OSG, Pacho will use up to 10 different trumpets: C cornet, D cornet, soprano F cornet, soprano G cornet; Bb, C, A and D flugelhorns, C trumpet and D trumpet, distributed as follows: Arturo Márquez, C trumpet, Bb flugelhorn, soprano F cornet; Pacho Flores, C flugelhorn, low A flugelhorn and soprano D flugelhorn, (all of them new prototypes made specifically for this concert); Paquito D’Rivera, C cornet, C trumpet, soprano G cornet, Bb flugelhorn, soprano F cornet; Gabriela Ortiz, D cornet, Bb flugelhorn, C and D trumpets.
This is the list of orchestras that have participated in the project, with the names of the conductors and dates of premieres, either already performed or planned, and all of them, naturally, by Pacho Flores.
Arturo Márquez – Concierto de Otoño
National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico (Mexico), Carlos Miguel Prieto, September 7 and 9, 2018; Tucson Symphony Orchestra (USA), José Luis Gómez, January 25 and 27, 2019; Hyogo PAC Orchestra (Japan), Michiyoshi Inoue, May 24, 25 and 26, 2019; Oviedo Filarmonía (Spain), Lucas Macías, August 14, 2019.
Paquito D’Rivera – Concerto Venezolano
Minería Symphony Orchestra (Mexico), Carlos Miguel Prieto, September 1, 2019; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (United Kingdom), Domingo Hindoyan, November 11 and 14, 2021; Valencia Orchestra (Spain), Hernández-Silva, February 3, 2022; San Diego Symphony (USA), Rafael Payare, February 25, 26 and March 2, 2022.
Roberto Sierra – Salseando
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (UK), Domingo Hindoyan, January 9, 2020; Symphony Orchestra of the Region of Murcia (Spain), Hernández-Silva, December 17, 2020; Symphony Orchestra of the State of São Paulo (Brazil), Carlos Miguel Prieto, March 31, April 1 and 2, 2022; Orchestre National de Bordeaux Aquitaine (France), Hernández-Silva, June 3, 2022.
Daniel Freiberg – Historias de Flores y Tangos
Oviedo Filarmonía (Spain), Lucas Macías, October 23, 2021; Minería Symphony Orchestra (Mexico), Carlos Miguel Prieto, August 20 and 21, 2022; Arctic Philharmonic (Norway), Hernández-Silva, March 16 and 17, 2023; Walla Walla Symphony (USA), Yaacob Bergman, May 2, 2023.
Efraín Oscher – Danzas Latinas
Royal Philharmonic of Galicia (Spain), Hernández-Silva; November 21 and 22, 2019.
Gabriela Ortiz – Altar de Bronce
Galician Symphony Orchestra (Spain), Hernández-Silva; April 14 and 15, 2023; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (United Kingdom), D. Hindoyan; July 8, 2023; Minería Symphony Orchestra (Mexico), Carlos Miguel Prieto, August 19 and 20, 2023; New World Symphony (USA), Carlos M. Prieto; February 9 and 10, 2024; San Diego Symphony (USA), Rafael Payare, February 16 and 17, 2024.
Christian Lindberg – Caballos Mágicos
Royal Philharmonia of Galicia (Spain), Paul Daniel, May 27 and 28, 2021; Swedish Chamber Orchestra (Sweden), Christian Lindberg, September 30, 2021; Central Ohio Symphony (USA), Jaime Morales, March 17, 2024; Bilkent Symphony Orchestra (Turkey), Christian Lindberg, 2024/25 season.
D. Freiberg, A. Márquez, P. D’Rivera, P. Flores and C. M. Prieto during the recording of ESTIRPE for Deutsche Grammophon
In addition, throughout this period Pacho Flores has also premiered other concerts that some composers have written for him on their own initiative or that have been commissioned by other orchestras in parallel to this project: Pacho Flores: Cantos y revueltas (11/12/13 January 2018, Real Filharmonía de Galicia, Hernández-Silva); Giancarlo Castro: Stunning Trumpet (February 23, 2018, Ulster Orchestra, Rafael Payare); Alain Trudel: Preach, pour trumpette et orchestre (March 14, 2018, Orchester Symphonique de Laval, Alain Trudel); Efraín Oscher: Apex, Double concerto for clarinet and trumpet (August 31, 2018, Norddeutsche Philharmonie Rostock, Markus Bosch); Daniel Freiberg: Latin American Chronicles (4/5/6 January 2019, Het Gelders Orkest, Christian Vásquez); Christian Lindberg: Un sueño morisco, double concerto for trumpet and trombone (March 21/22, 2019, RTVE Orchestra, Christian Lindberg); Arturo Sandoval: Trumpet Concerto (July 11, 2019, Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra, Enrique Diemecke); Eleanor Alberga: Invocation (20 September 2021, London Schools Symphony Orchestra, Peter Ash); Pacho Flores: Heterónimos, concertino for trumpet (April 24, 2022, Symphony of the Region of Murcia, Flores; Albares, concert for flugelhorn, April 29, 2022, Tenerife Symphony, Christian Vásquez); Igmar Alderete: Mambí, Concerto for trumpet and orchestra (June 16 and 17, 2022, Orquesta de Córdoba, Carlos Domínguez-Nieto); Sonia Morales: Divertimento Caribeño, No. 6 (March 17, 2024, Central Ohio Symphony, Jaime Morales); Tuomas Turriago: Trumpet Concerto (April 5, 2024, Tampere Philharmonia, Christian Vásquez). Other concerts are currently being created by composers such as Alonso Toro, Mauricio González Brito or Igmar Alderete.
Pacho Flores makes his debut with the Quebec Symphony Orchestra on 1 and 2 March under the direction of Anu Tali, with whom he will perform Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto as well as the Canadian premiere of Salseando, the concert composed by Roberto Sierra that has been recently premiered by Pacho in the US with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra and Manuel Hernández-Silva. Salseando is part of the project of shared commissions for new trumpet concerts promoted by Pacho Flores and managed worldwide by his agency, ACM Concerts. It was commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Región de Murcia Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, and the Orchestre National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine. The first premiere took place in Liverpool with Domingo Hindoyan on 9 January 2020, the Brazilian premiere on 31 March, 1 and 2 April 2022 under Carlos Miguel Prieto, while Hernández-Silva was in charge of the Spanish and French premieres on 17 December 2020 and 3 June 2022, respectively. After the recent US and forthcoming Canadian premiere, Salseando will land on the stands of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Rafael Payare and later return to the Liverpool Philharmonic, which will also record it for Pacho’s next album. The 2023/24 season will also see its Polish premiere, again with conductor Manuel Hernández-Silva.
Other concerts in this project are Concierto de otoño by Arturo Márquez, Concerto Venezolano by Paquito D’Rivera, Danzas Latinas by Efraín Oscher, Caballos mágicos by Christian Lindberg, Historias de Flores y Tangos by Daniel Freiberg, and Altar de Bronze by Gabriela Ortiz. The first three of them, along with Sierra’s Salseando, have already completed their cycle of premieres with the commissioning orchestras and begun a fruitful career. Lindberg and Freiberg concerts are currently being premiered, and Altar de Bronce, the last concert to join the project, will soon begin its premiere cycle with the Galician Symphony Orchestra and Hernández-Silva, to continue with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Minería Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony and San Diego Symphony.
Meanwhile, there have also been other premieres such as Concierto Mambí, by Igmar Alderete, with the Cordoba Orchestra and Carlos Domínguez-Nieto, or Invocation, by Eleanor Alberga, with the London Schools Orchestra and Peter Ash. Other premieres are scheduled, such as the new concert by Tuomas Turriago with the Tampere Filharmonia and Christian Vásquez, or Divertimento Caribeño, by Sonia Morales, with the Central Ohio Symphony Orchestra and Jaime Morales conducting, among others to be announced in due course.
Christian Vásquez made his debut last year 2021 at the Tongyeong International Festival in South Korea conducting two concerts with the Festival Orchestra and two soloists such as Bomsori Kim and Camille Thomas and was immediately invited to conduct the final phase and the winners’ concert of the Tongyeong Isang Yun Cello International Competition on November 5th and 6th. The Isangyun International Competition has been presented by the Tongyeong International Music Foundation since 2003. It is held in memory of Isang Yun (1917-1995), a renowned Korean composer, promoting cultural exchanges between nations through music while that supports young musicians from all over the world. The contest takes place annually in the month of November, alternating the piano, violin and cello disciplines. Isang Yun was born in Tongyeong in 1917, he created bridges between Asian and Western cultures, his style is part of traditional Korean music, and yet, working with the twelve-tone technique and other means of the Western avant-garde, it also has its place in the European tradition.
Upon his return from Korea, Christian Vásquez will travel to Venezuela for a long stay leading the various formations of EL SISTEMA, in which he plays a prominent role as musical director of the Juan José Landaeta Orchestra, formerly the Teresa Carreño Symphony Orchestra. On November 20, Christian Vásquez conducts the Juan José Landaeta with a program that includes: Tan Dun’s Wolf Totem, concerto for double bass and orchestra, with Edicson Ruiz as soloist, and the Concerto for orchestra by Béla Bartók; on November 26 he conducts the Simón Bolívar Symphony with the Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso by Camille Saint-Saëns, with Thibault Vieux on the violin, the Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra by Efraín Oscher, again with Edicson Ruiz on double bass and the Alpine Symphony by Richard Strauss; on December 3, Christian Vásquez joins the Gaêlica group to present the show Una noche de luz; On December 7, he conducts the Venezuelan Symphony with the overture to The Marriage of Figaro and the Concerto in A Major for clarinet and orchestra by W. A. Mozart, with Andrés Nieves on clarinet and Symphony no. 9, New World, by Antonín Dvořák, to round off his stay again with the Bolívar, on December 16, with Hector Berlioz’s Te Deum.
Immediately afterwards, Christian Vásquez will travel to the Opera National de Paris where he will work as assistant to Gustavo Dudamel in the production of Tristan and Isolde, and where he will return later in April to direct several ballet performances, after passing through Poland, with the Baltic Philharmonic , where he will work with the violinist Robert Lakatoš, and again Venezuela. Before the end of the season he will still go to Colombia to lead the Colombian National Orchestra, with Pacho Flores, and the Medellín Philharmonic, and Switzerland to conduct the Geneva Conservatory Orchestra.
