El Blog de Tritó » Benet Casablancas

Zagreb and Alexandria to hear Benet Casablancas

Cristina Martí — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 12:18:37 +0000

Coinciding with the twenty-sixth Zagreb Music Biennale (7 to 17 April), this year will see the celebration of the Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music from 10 to 15 April. Benet Casablancas will attend the closing concert to listen to his work “Dove of Peace: Homage to Picasso” being performed by the “Zeitfluss” ensemble. Casablancas, musicologist and composer born in Sabadell (Barcelona), and academic director of the Conservatorio Superior de Música del Liceo in Barcelona since 2002, is also a member of the international jury that has selected sixty-eight modern compositions, in fourteen categories, out of the 400 submitted for performance during the 2011 ISCM World New Music Days.

“Dove of Peace: Homage to Picasso”

Commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chamber Concerto no. 1 for clarinet and ensemble, “Dove of Peace: Homage to Picasso”, will be performed in Zagreb by Davorin Brozić as soloist and the Ossian Ensemble from Canterbury, led by Darren Bloom. This first performance in Croatia follows on from the world premiere of the work in May 2010 in Liverpool, with Nicholas Cox and the Ensemble 10/10 conducted by Clark Rundell. Its Spanish premiere is scheduled for next January in Madrid.

Forthcoming concerts with Casablancas

In addition, the Egyptian premiere of “New Epigrams” will take place at the II Alexandrina Contemporary Music Biennale, with the London Sinfonietta conducted by Diego Masson (whose programme includes works by Benjamin, Saed Haddad, Ligeti and Birtwistle), and the also three “Epigrams” for sextet, to be played by the Barcelona 216 ensemble conducted by José María Sánchez-Verdú. Both concerts will be offered at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (26 and 27 April), and will be repeated on the following days at the Cairo Opera House and the Falaki Theatre in the same city (2 May). For further information, consult the European-Egyptian Contemporary Music Society website.

And in the near future, works by Casablancas will also be premiered in Argentina and, once again, Japan. As regards concerts in Spain, particular mention should be made of those to be offered next May by the Deutsches Kammerphilharmonie from Bremen, which will present the “Nocturne” for orchestra in Bilbao and Barcelona, and the first performance of the “Third String Quartet” in Barcelona, to be played by the Arditti Quartet, which premiered the work and recently recorded a CD on the Tritó label with the complete quartets and string trio.

Casablancas, finalist at the XV Music Awards

Cristina Martí — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 09:23:32 +0000

Benet Casablancas has been selected as a finalist at the XV Music Awards in the ‘Best Classical Music Composer’ category with his work ‘Alter Klang. Impromptu for orchestra after Paul Klee”.

A recording of the piece is included in the monographic CD ‘Benet Casablancas. Orchestral Works’, released on the Anemos/Inaem label and performed by the Orquesta Nacional de España under the baton of its chief conductor Josep Pons, with Bertram Kornacher overseeing the musical production.

The album, beautifully presented and with documented sleeve notes by Yvan Nommick, also includes ‘Three Epigrams’ for orchestra and the world premiere of the composer’s latest work, ‘Darkness visible. Nocturne for orchestra’.

Written as a commission for the Orquesta Nacional de España, which premiered the piece in January 2007 at the Auditorio Nacional de Madrid in February 2007, ‘Alter Klang’ has enjoyed notable success, having been played on repeated occasions in Spain and abroad (Holland, Belgium, Sweden) by orchestras such as the Filarmónica de Gran Canaria, the Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid, the NJO from The Netherlands, the Orchestre National de Belgique and the Malmö Simfoni Orkester. And in March 2012 it will be performed in Barcelona by the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya.

Upcoming concerts

Cristina Martí — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 07:48:08 +0000

Maybe you are still not aware that Tritó has a concert schedule, which provides details of all our composers’ musical activity, both around Spain and abroad.

To begin with, last week, on the 23 and 25 February, the Oviedo Filarmonía, under the baton of Lorenzo Ramos, performed the Tonadillas by Enric Granados with orchestration by Albert Guinovart, at the Auditorio Príncipe Felipe in Oviedo and the Madrid auditorium.

And on 26 February in Biscaya, the Orquestra Simfònica de Bilbao and the Orfeón Donostiarra continued the commemoration of the 50^th anniversary of the death Jesús Guridi, performing his “Cuadros Vascos” at the Teatro Social Antzokia in Basauri

We can recommend seven concerts in March: if you were at the Centre Pompidou in Paris on the 2^nd of the month you may have listened to the Ensemble Intercontemporain playing “Stress Tensor” by Hèctor Parra. On the 11^th, Sortilegis, by Xavier Montsalvatge, will be performed at the Teatro Monumental in Madrid by the Orquestra de RTVE, and on the following day, at the same venue and with soloists from the same orchestra, you can listen to the Quartet with oboe by Jesús Torres

Continuing in the month of March, other concerts are La rosa del azafrán, by Jacinto Guerrero in Albacete on the 18^th, Orchestral highlights from the opera Pepita Jiménez by Isaac Albéniz (edited by José de Eusebio) in Reutlingen (Germany), and the Obertura del ballet Alphonse et Léonore ou L’amant peintre by Ferran Sor in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, both on the 24^th. And lastly, on 29 March the students from the Salamanca Music Conservatory will play the Concert for bassoon and chamber ensemble by Agustí Charles

There’s sure to be something that interests you among all these works. As you know, if you want to go to a concert, consult the schedule for the next few months. Enjoy yourselves!

Presentation of two monographic CDs by Charles and Casablancas

Marcel Soleda — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 13:42:19 +0000

Next Friday 3 December, at 12:30, will see the presentation of two monographic CDs: Elapsed Memories, by Agustí Charles, and Complete String Quartets and Trio, by Benet Casablancas. The act will be held at the Club Social of the headquarters of the Sgae Group in Catalonia (Passeig Colom, 6).

Ramon Muntaner, Llorenç Caballero, director of Tritó Edicions, and the composers themselves, Benet Casablancas and Agustí Charles, will speak at the presentation.

The work of the composer and musicologist Casablancas was recorded in the chamber music hall of the Auditori de Girona on 27, 28 and 29 July 2009 with the collaboration of the SGAE and the Fundació Autor, and consists of five pieces of music: Five interludes -quasi variazioni- (1983), String quartet no. 2 (1991), String trio (1992), Encore for Arditti (2004) and String quartet no. 3 -Raging in the Dark- (2009).

On the other hand, in September 2009 at the Auditori de Barcelona, the OBC under the baton of Jaime Martín recorded three orchestral works by the composer Agustí Charles: Elapsed Memories (2006), Double Variations (1994) and Effigies II (1998).

For further information see: www.sgae.es.

Casablancas debuts “Dove of Peace”, homage to Picasso

Toni Cruanyes — Wed, 19 May 2010 07:33:55 +0000

Dove of Peace. Homage to Picasso Hill will be premiered on 19 May at the Cornerstone, Hope Everton, Great Hall of Liverpool, by the clarinettist Nicholas Cox and the Ensemble 10/10 under the baton of Clark Rundell.

This work, which is his chamber concerto nº 1 for clarinet and chamber orchestra, is fruit of a commission from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. The fact that the date of the premiere coincided with the celebration of a major exhibition devoted to Picasso at the Tate Liverpool prompted the composer to envisage his work as a homage to the much-admired Spanish artist.

With this piece, the author once again explores one of his passions, which has become a constant in his oeuvre, and this is the dialogue with other artistic languages, poetry and literature, and especially painting, whose echo we can recognize in pieces like Alter Klang, Impromptu for orchestra after poems by Paul Klee (2006) or Four Darks in Red, based on the work of Rothko, and recently premiered in New York..

This work is Casablancas’ first incursion into the concertante genre.

Alter Klang by Benet Casablancas in Holland, Belgium and Sweden

Leticia Martin — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 16:34:25 +0000

The Dutch youth orchestra, Nationaal Jeugd Orkest, conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw, has chosen the work Alter Klang by Benet Casablancas for its January concert tour, which takes it to the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht in Holland and Antwerp in Belgium. This work consolidates Benet Casablancas’ place among the most internationally acclaimed Spanish composers.

Alter Klang (Antique harmonies) refers back to a well-known painting with the same name by Paul Klee. The composer brings a broad spectrum of sustained rhetorical resources and synesthesiae into play, which emerged in the adaptation of the pictorial language to music.

Composed in a sole movement for large orchestra it has received chamber music treatment on various occasions. It is dedicated to Josep Pons, who conducted the premiere at the Auditorio Nacional de Madrid in 2007. This same conductor will perform it in Malmö (Sweden) with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra in April.

Alter Klang

New Epigrams in ISCM World Music Days 2008

Leticia Martin — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:00:00 +0000

Benet Casablancas‘ “New Epigrams” for chamber orchestra has been included in the programme for “ISCM World Music Days 2008″, being held this year in Vilnius (Lithuania). The piece, Spain’s sole representative at this year’s Festival, is being performed on October 27 by the Cantus Ensemble of Croatia at the Town Hall in the Lithuanian capital. The international jury, charged with making their selection from among over 350 scores submitted by the ISCM’s national sections, includes figures of the stature of Peter Eötvös, Jonathan Harvey, Luca Francesconi, Onute Narbutaire and Helena Tulve. New Epigrams has been performed previously in London (London Sinfonietta Perspective CD), Strasbourg (Festival Musica), Amsterdam (Holland Festival), Düsseldorf (Biennale “Ohren Musik aus Europa”), St. Petersburg (Hermitage State Orchestra), La Tour-de- Trême (Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne), Oberlin (Ohio, USA), Vienna (Portrait Benet Casablancas, Musikverein) as well as in several Spanish cities (Barcelona, Madrid, Alicante, Sabadell and Valencia).
Alter Klang “Impromptu per a orquestra”, was commissioned by the Spanish National Orchestra in 2007, and is published by Tritó Edicions. In 2009 the piece will be performed in Holland, Belgium and Sweden.

Benet Casablancas’ Complete Piano Works on Naxos

Redacción — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:11:14 +0000

Naxos, one of the leading record labels today, has just published the complete works for piano by Benet Casablancas, performed by Jordi Masó and Miquel Villalba.

In recent years, Casablancas (born in 1956 in the town of Sabadell, near Barcelona) has confirmed his status as one of the most active and important composers in Spain today.

His solid background in music and the humanities has enabled him to develop a highly personal language that, despite being firmly based on knowledge of and love for the great classical tradition (with the Second Viennese School as one of his key points of reference), is open a wide range of influences, which he is able to assume without resorting to eclectic devices.

The selection presented here brings together virtually all the works for piano Casablancas has composed. This recording testifies to a mature and very complete oeuvre, while undoubtedly heralding works of great interest yet to come.

There are avalable scores for this CD.

Concert dedicated to Benet Casablancas in Vienna

Redacción — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 22:00:00 +0000

This 9 April, 2008, the prestigious Musikverein in Vienna hosts a concert dedicated to the chamber works of Benet Casablancas. The event features the Barcelona ensemble Barcelona 216 with the actor Carlos Hipólito as reciter, under the direction of Manuel Valdivieso. The concert is part of the Spanien Modern cycle, promoted by the Cervantes Institute of Vienna, with support from the Ramón Llull Institute. The programme comprises the following works: New Epigrams, In modo di Passacaglia, Celebració-Scherzino and “Escenas de Hamlet”. All of these works were recorded recently by the same performers for an upcoming CD. The music of Benet Casablancas, last year’s winner of the Catalan National Music Prize, enjoys growing international diffusion. As of late, his works have been performed in Germany, Switzerland, Venezuela, France, Sweden, United States, Peru, El Salvador, Turkey, England, Belgium and Holland. In recordings, two releases of Casablancas’ works are imminent: his complete works for piano, performed by J. Masó and M. Villalba (NAXOS), and his orchestration of “Cinc Cançons i Danses by Frederic Mompou”, performed by the Orquesta Filarmonia de Galicia conducted by A. Ros-Marbà (WARNER). Another recording – of the orchestral pieces The Dark Backward of Time, Tres Epigramas, Postludio, Poema d´amor and Intrada sobre el nom de DALI performed by the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i National de Catalunya with Ofèlia Sala and conducted by Salvador Mas – has been completed.

Benet Casablancas at Musicadhoy

Redacción — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 22:00:00 +0000

The in its 12th edition, Musicadhoy, a season of contemporary music held in Madrid, dedicates a monographic concert to the Catalan composer Benet Casablancas, the most recent winner of the Catalan National Music Prize for composition. The concert focuses on his chamber music, with a programme featuring: “Movement for Trio”, “Two Pieces for clarinet and piano”, “Impromptu” -Trio No. 2-, “Passacaglia for solo violin” (WORLD PREMIERE), “Tríptico”, for solo cello, “Cant per a F. Mompou -remembrança-” for cello and piano, “Haiku para Trio” and “Introduction, Cadenza and Aria”, for violin, clarinet, cello and piano. The works are performed by the Trio Kandinsky (Corrado Bolsi, Amparo Lacruz, Emili Brugalla) with the clarinetist Salvador Salvador, from Proyecto Gerhard. The concert takes place this 6 March at the National Auditorium in Madrid.