Pacho Flores and Hernández-Silva will offer a concert with the Nord Czech Philharmonic as part of the Beethoven Festival in Teplice, in the Czech Republic, next Thursday, June 17. Due to the restrictions still in force in the Central European country, the concert will be held without an audience and will later be broadcasted on June 27 on the orchestra’s YouTube channel and other platforms. The Nord Czech Philharmonic, Severočeská Filharmonie or Nordböhmische Philharmonie, in Teplice, is an orchestra that has been continuously active since 1838, and since 1964 it has been responsible for organizing the Beethoven Festival. Hernández-Silva has already conducted the Nord Czech Philharmonic on previous occasions, not so Pacho Flores, for whom this concert means his debut with the ensemble. The programme consists of two concerts for trumpet—the Concerto for Corno da Caccia, by Czech composer Neruda, and the Czech premiere of the Concierto de Otoño by Arturo Márquez—together with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.
This collaboration with the Nord Czech Philharmonic is not the first between both artists; on the contrary, Pacho Flores and Hernández-Silva have a long history of joint presence with Spanish orchestras such as the Navarra Symphony Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfónica de la Región de Murcia, the Malaga Philharmonic, the Simfònica de les Illes Balears and especially the Real Filharmonía de Galicia, with which they have performed several premieres and recorded the album Cantos y Revueltas for Deutsche Grammophon. New collaborations in Spain for the 2021/22 and 2022/23 seasons will be announced in due course, and new premieres are also planned with the Arctic Philharmonic in Norway or the Orchestre National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine in France. Recently, they have also been together with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Bogota (Colombia).
Arturo Márquez’s Concierto de Otoño is the result of the project of shared commissions for new trumpet concerts that Pacho himself has started. The concert was commissioned and premiered by the Mexico National Orquestra (Carlos Miguel Prieto), Tucson Symphony Orchestra (José Luis Gómez), Hyogo PAC Orchestra of Japan (Michiyoshi Inoue) and the Oviedo Filarmonía (Lucas Macías). This Czech premiere with the Nord Czech Philharmonie is the twenty-third performance since the first premiere in September 2018—the fourth under the baton of Hernández-Silva—, after having been performed in Mexico, USA, Japan, Spain, France, United Kingdom, Poland and Colombia.
Pacho Flores premieres Caballos mágicos, the new concerto for trumpet and orchestra by Christian Lindberg, next Thursday, May 27 with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia. The orchestra commissioned this piece together with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra in Turkey, and another ensemble yet to be determined. This is the third absolute premiere by Pacho Flores with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia (RFG), and the second within the Project of Shared Commissions for New Trumpet Concertos. Pacho Flores and the RFG premiered in January 2018, under Manuel Hernández-Silva, Pacho’s composition Cantos y Revueltas, in a concert tour that included Santiago, Vigo and A Coruña. The concerts were recorded and gave rise to the eponymous double CD / DVD for Deutsche Grammophon. In November 2019 and with the same conductor, Pacho and the RFG premiered Danzas Latinas, by Efraín Oscher. On this occasion, Paul Daniel, Principal Conductor of the orchestra, will be in charge of the new premiere.
Lindberg is also the author of Akban Bunka, one of the concerts that are part of Pacho Flores’ usual repertoire and that he has played all over the world, as well as of Un Sueño Morisco, a double concerto for trumpet and trombone that was commissioned and premiered by the RTVE Orchestra in March 2019, with Ximo Vicedo on the trombone and Lindberg himself on the podium, and that Pacho and Ximo have played this past 1 May at the ADDA in Alicante. Caballos mágicos will be the fifth concert premiered by Pacho Flores within this project of shared commissions after those by Arturo Márquez, Paquito D’Rivera, Roberto Sierra and the aforementioned Efraín Oscher. These two first rounds of commissions will be closed with the premiere of a sixth concert by Daniel Freiberg, and the project will soon be completed with a third round by three new composers.
Orchestras from all over the world participate in this project of commissions, and despite all the delays and inconveniences caused by the pandemic, many of the premieres, since the first one in September 2018, have already been carried out. What’s more important, these concerts become then part of Pacho Flores’ usual repertoire. This is the sequence of premieres by composer: Arturo Márquez: Orquesta Nacional de México, Carlos Miguel Prieto, September 2018; Tucson Symphony Orchestra (USA), José L. Gómez, January 2019; Hyogo PAC Orchestra (Japan), Michiyoshi Inoue, May 2019; and Oviedo Filarmonía, Lucas Macías, August 2019; Paquito D’Rivera: Orchesta de Minería (Mexico), Carlos Miguel Prieto, September 2019; Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (UK), Domingo Hindoyan, November 2021; Orquesta de Valencia, Manuel Hernández-Silva, February 2022; San Diego Symphony (USA), Rafael Payare, February 2022; Efraín Oscher: Real Filharmonía de Galicia (RFG), Hernández-Silva; November 2019; Roberto Sierra: Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (United Kingdom), Domingo Hindoyan, January 2020; Symphony of the Region of Murcia, Hernández-Silva, December 2020; Simfònica do Estado São Paulo (Brazil), conductor to be determined, March-April 2022: Orchestre National de Bordeaux Aquitaine (France), Manuel Hernández-Silva, June 2022; and some Daniel Freiberg premieres are also planned: Oviedo Filarmonía, Lucas Macías, October 2021; Arctic Philharmonic (Norway), Manuel Hernández-Silva and Orquesta de Minería (Mexico), Carlos Miguel Prieto, on dates to be determined.
Christian Lindberg has also been the director of Fractales, Pacho Flores’ third album for Deutsche Grammophon, and they recently recorded duets by Mozart and Bach’s inventions in an arrangement for trumpet and trombone for the European Grammophon label.
Pacho Flores and Hernández-Silva return together to the Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra for a program that includes the Concerto for corno da caccia, by J. B. G. Neruda, the Colombian premiere of Cantos y Revueltas by Pacho Flores himself, which both artists recorded for the Deutsche Grammophon label, and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4. It will be on Friday, April 26. Previously, Pacho Flores will be the only protagonist in a concert in which he will appear as player and conductor of the Brass Ensemble of the Bogotá Philharmonic. The program will present, together with works by Copland and Dukas and arrangements of works by Gershwin, Sarasate, Piazzolla and Pacho Flores himself, the absolute premiere of Musas y Resuello, Symphonic movement for brass ensemble and percussion, a piece commissioned by the Bogotá Philharmonic to the Spanish-Venezuelan trumpeter. This concert will take place on Friday, April 17, after a week in which Pacho Flores will participate in various educational activities and a masterclasses.
Pacho Flores and Hernández-Silva have just recently presented Cantos y Revueltas together with the Orquesta de Extremadura, a concert that the Scherzo magazine collaborator Justo Romero defined as overwhelming, luminous and radiant: “The confluence of three Venezuelan talents such as conductor Manuel Hernández- Silva (…), trumpet player Pacho Flores (can someone play better?) and the virtuoso of the Venezuelan cuatro Leo Rondón (eighth notes and rhythm in vein) turned the tenth subscription program of the Extremadura Orchestra into a feast for the senses in which music was happiness and emotion. Overwhelming, yes, but, above all, joyous and brimming with art, inspiration, talent and fine quality.”
Both artists have a dense history of collaborations full of memorable evenings, such as the premiere of Cantos y Revueltas with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia, whose live recording was later published as an album and led to further presentations with the orchestras of Malaga, Navarre, Murcia or the above mentioned Extremadura, but also the premieres of Danzas Latinas by Efraín Oscher (RFG) and Salseando by Roberto Sierra (OSRM), or the memorable version of the Concierto de otoño by Arturo Márquez (RFG). Still ahead are new premieres of works by composers such as Daniel Freiberg with the Arctic Philharmonic, Roberto Sierra with the Orchestra National de Bordeaux Aquitaine, and the Concerto Venezolano by Paquito D’Rivera with a Spanish orchestra to be soon announced.
Manuel Hernández-Silva will make his debut with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra next 13 and 15 March 2020 at the Tucson Music Hall. Hernández-Silva will conduct Barber’s Adagio for strings and the Violin concerto, with rising violinist Paul Huang as soloist, and Shostakovich’s Symphony nº 12 in D minor, ‘The Year 1917’.
Hernández-Silva visits Tucson at the end of a busy winter where he has conducted two programs with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia -the premiere with Pacho Flores of Danzas Latinas, last trumpet concerto by Efraín Oscher, in November, and the complete Beethoven piano concertos with Javier Perianes in January- and the Spanish Radio and Television Orchestra, conducting Martinu’s 4th Symphony. He now faces a no less busy spring where he will premiere Manuel Moreno Buendía’s Stabat Mater with the Murcia Symphony Orchestra, as well as come back to the Spanish Radio and Television Orchestra for an appearance at the Week of Religious Music of Cuenca, together with concerts with the Malaga Philharmonic and the Navarra Symphony, both orchestras where Hernández-Silva is Music & Artistic Director.
Hernández-Silva is facing more new debuts in the USA as well as in Norway and France, and has other engagements in Switzerland, Germany, Argentina, México, Puerto Rico, etc. He si also improving his career as an opera conductor with upcoming engagements to conduct Beethoven’s Fidelio or Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, after receiving excellent reviews for his last opera performances, Fidelio and Mozart’s Cosí fan tutte, both at Teatro Cervantes in Málaga. Hernández-Silva is the conductor of Cantos y Revueltas, Pacho Flores’ last recording for Deutsche Grammophon.
The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Pacho Flores and Domingo Hindoyan will offer the premiere of Roberto Sierra’s new trumpet concerto, Salseando, next Thursday, January the 9th of 2020 at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. Its next premiere will be about the summer by the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra and Giancarlo Guerrero and it will have its Spanish and French premieres at the end of the year by two orchestras to announce. Salseando is composed in three movements: Salseado (tempo of Salsa), Tempo di Bolero, and Veloz (fast), and demands four different instruments, trumpets in C and Bb, piccolo in A and flugelhorn. Together with Roberto Sierra’s premiere, Pacho will also play the British premiere of Arturo Márquez’s Concierto de Otoño. Both concertos are part of a large and ambitious project of co-commissions of new trumpet concertos to outstanding composers as Sierra and Márquez themselves, Paquito D’Rivera, Efraín Oscher, Christian Lindberg and Daniel Freiberg, involving orchestras form all around the world.
Arturo Márquez’s Concierto de Otoño was commissioned and premiered by the National Orchestra of México and Carlos Miguel Prieto, the Tucson Symphony Orchestra and José Luis Gómez, the Hyogo PAC Orchestra of Japan and Michiyoshi Inoue, and the Oviedo Filarmonía in Spain and Lucas Macías; Paquito D’Rivera’s Concerto Venezolano was premiered by the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería with Carlos Miguel Prieto and is going soon to have its USA and Spanish premieres by the San Diego Symphony Orchestra with Rafael Payare and Orquesta of Valencia in Spain with Vicent Alberola. Recently it was also premiered Efraín Oscher’s Danzas Latinas by the Real Filharmonía de Galicia with Manuel Hernández-Silva. Daniel Freiberg and Christian Lindberg commissions and premieres will be announced soon.
Besides this project os shared commissions of new trumpet concertos Pacho is also premiering new works dedicated to him as the double concerto for trumpet and trombone Un Sueño Morisco, by Christian Lindberg, premiered this year by the Spanish National Orchestra of Radio and TV conducted by Christian Lindberg himself and with Ximo Vicedo at the trombone; or its own piece Cantos y Revueltas, premiered by the Real Filharmonía de Galicia and Manuel Hernández-Silva in 2018, which is the main piece of Pacho’s last recording for Deutsche Grammophon launched recently.
