NEWS

 

Looking towards 2010 and beyond… 
 

Several interesting concerts are planned for the early months of 2010. There will be two performances of  "1/6 plugged", the sextet for electric guitar and group that I premiered with Plural Ensemble last spring. The first will be in January in A Coruña, with Grupo Matritum, and the second in March in Madrid with the Orquestra de Cadaqués as part of the CDMC’s season. In the meantime, at the beginning of February, I will premiere “Garden of notes” for guitar and piano in Valladolid with Ananda Sukarlan. This represents my contribution to the project of the Fundación Música Abierta, which is directed by Rosa Iglesias and is dedicated to providing people with disabilities with an opportunity to participate in musical activities, a wonderful idea that adds a new dimension to the music of the composers who take part. In addition to the publication of the score, a record will be published with pieces from all of the project’s composers, recorded with pianist Ananda Sukarlan, violinist Manuel Guillén, and with me on electric guitar.

 "Vacaguaré": I am immersed in a large new project that has me very excited: "Vacaguaré" was commissioned for the Tenerife Opera Festival, which is directed by Giancarlo del Monaco.  The libretto is by novelist, poet, and journalist Fernando Delgado, and is based on a guanche legend with a historical background. The action is set on the island of La Palma during the arrival of the Spaniards. The collaboration between Fernando and me has been superb because he is a writer and music lover with a perfect understanding of the composer’s needs in regard to the word. We've decided on something that is quite unusual in our times: The dramatic text will be entirely in verse. The opera will have 3 leading voices, an actress, an actor, chorus, and a medium-size orchestra with 10 woodwinds, 3 horns, 2 percussionists, 2 electric guitars and strings, and will take place in a single act divided into 8 scenes.  

“Carmen replay”, the ballet commissioned by the Teatro Real’s Educational Activities, is warming up its engines. The premiere will be in May, at the Carlos III University in Leganés. There will be 5 performances: 4 matinees on the 13^th and 14^th, and an evening performance on the 15^th.   Composing for the teenage audience that is going to be the first to hear this work is a real test of fire for a musician. I have tried to rise to the occasion by creating a piece full of doors that today's teens will recognise, and I hope to have left the keys in the locks so that the listeners find them easy to open. The approximately one-hour piece features the main episodes and scenes of the libretto Meilhac and Halévy wrote for Bizet, and it is composed for my trio Rejoice!. The choreography will be by Tony Fabre for the Compañía Nacional de Danza 2, plus video work by Luca Scarzella.

“Sol de invierno” performed again in Madrid: My chamber opera on Ibsen, which premiered in a concert version in Madrid in 2002, was successfully performed again in my city, this time in the stage version, which was produced by Porto’s Teatro San Joao during its inaugural year, with musical direction by Miquel Bernat and stage direction by Antonio Pires. The performance was held on June 16th, at the Teatros del Canal as part of Operadhoy, with Susana Teixeira as the mother, Diogo Oliveira as Oswald, and the percussion group Drumming.