Perry So conducts this week the Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra in a very interesting programme combining the work of the Navarrese Fernando Remacha (1898-1984), Jesus Christ on the Cross, with Bruckner’s 6th Symphony, for which he has assembled a cast formed by the soprano Andrea Jiménez, contralto Leticia Vergara, tenor Guillen Munguía, bass Iosu Yeregui and the Coral de Cámara de Pamplona. The concerts will take place on February 27th in the Baluarte Auditorium in Pamplona and on the 28th in the Teatro Gaztambide in Tudela, both days at 19:3 pm.
Perry So conducted the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie past 19 January in the Hunsrückhalle in Simmern with a programme including Mozart’s Symphony No. 31 Paris, the Piano Concerto No. 2 and the Allegro appassionato for piano and orchestra, Op. 70 by Saint-Saëns, with pianist Anny Hwang as soloist, and Francis Poulenc’s Sinfonietta. Shortly afterwards he conducted Verdi’s La Traviata at the Baluarte in Pamplona and the Kursaal of San Sebastián in a production by the Sferisterio de Macerata and in short he will conduct the Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal. A dynamic and transformative presence in concert halls on five continents, Perry So is currently Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra and Music Director of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. Under his leadership, the Navarre Symphony Orchestra has toured to critical acclaim, widely lauded for the “artistic vitality” of its programming, and the ensemble, Spain’s oldest orchestra, recognized as currently being at “one of the finest points in its history.”
Perry So was born in 1982 in Hong Kong, where he received his early training in piano, organ, violin, viola and composition. He received a BA in Literature from Yale University with a major in Central European music and literature of the modernist period, during which time he founded an academic orchestra and conducted the university’s opera company. He studied conducting initially with James Sinclair and later with Gustav Meier at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. In 2008 he received the First Prize and the Special Prize at the 5th Edition of the International Prokofiev Conducting Competition in St. Petersburg. Following this recognition he was appointed Assistant Conductor and then Associate Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel Conducting Fellow at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Artistic Collaborator of the Principality of Asturias Symphony Orchestra, and member of the Department of Conducting at the Manhattan School of Music.
