Sincrotró-Alba: The premiere of the third symphony by Joan Guinjoan

Posted by Toni Cruanyes on May 5, 2010  |  1 Comment

On Friday 7 May, the expected premiere of Sincrotró-Alba, the third symphony by Joan Guinjoan, will take place. The work, organised into three movements, is fruit of a commission from the Synchrotron Consortium, whose particle accelerator in Cerdanyola del Vallès was inaugurated on 22 March, and who wish to celebrate its activation with an orchestral work inspired in the monumental scientific laboratory called Alba, which means ‘dawn’, a direct allusion to the first light of the morning, which dispels the darkness and unveils the landscape of a new day.

The programme, performed by the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya (OBC) under the baton of Ernest Martínez Izquierdo, will be opened by the work The Unanswered Question by Charles Ives, and will conclude with Rachmaninov’s popular second piano concerto.

Sincrotró-Alba is the most important piece composed by Joan Guinjoan in the last few years.

Premiere of Hypermusic Prologue, by Hèctor Parra

Posted by Marcel Soleda on June 11, 2009  |  No Comments

Sunday 14 June saw the premiere of “Hypermusic Prologue, a projective opera in seven planes” at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, a work by the composer Hèctor Parra with a libretto by the well-known professor of theoretical physics from Harvard University, Lisa Randall.

It is new style of opera, a unique project for intercommunication between science, music and art. In this work the traditional form of opera is explored to generate a form of dramatic expression suited to the 21st century, its ideas and creative processes, including recent research into physics and its parallelisms with music and art.

Hypermusic Prologue was commissioned by the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), the Centre Pompidou itself, and the Department of Culture of the Catalan Government.

The same production will be presented at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona on 27 and 28 de November.

Information about its premiere on the Catalan Television…

Hèctor Parra in the newspaper El País

Posted by Marcel Soleda on June 10, 2009  |  No Comments

The journalist Javier Pérez Senz has interviewed Hèctor Parra in the Babelia section of El País (6 June). The composer discussed his projective opera “Hypermusic Prologue“, his complex creative process, and his relationship with the American theoretical physicist Lisa Randall. He also mentioned how proud he feels to have been able to work on such a project with the Ensemble Intercontemporain.

“What I aim for as a creator is to move the listeners, stir their spirits and open up their imaginations to new sound energies in the awareness that, in a nutshell, composing is searching for oneself”.

A face-to-face encounter with the composer that preluded the première, which took place on 14 June at the Centre Pompidou in the French capital.

Link to the interview.

Opera 2.0 (3rd part)

Posted by Marcel Soleda on June 8, 2009  |  No Comments

In the last video of the series, the theoretical physicist and Harvard professor Lisa Randall, author of the libretto, talks about Hypermusic Prologue. The idea for the libretto came from one of her best-known books, “Warped passages” which was a best seller in the United States.

In Hypermusic Prologue, science, music and plastic arts find a meeting point in this innovative score, whose central character is a composer-scientist (soprano) torn between the love she feels for her partner (baritone) and her passion for research, her conviction that there is a much bigger world than we know waiting to be explored.

Opera 2.0 (2nd part)

Posted by Marcel Soleda on June 2, 2009  |  No Comments

The second part of the preparations for the premiere of Hypermusic Prologue, a new type of opera. This video focuses on the set design and the scenery, by the set designer Paul Desveaux and the artist Matthew Ritchie.

Opera 2.0 (1st part)

Posted by Leticia Martin on May 28, 2009  |  No Comments

Hypermusic Prologue, the opera by Hèctor Parra with a libretto by Lisa Randall, will be premiered in Paris on 14 June at the Centre Pompidou. During the two weeks leading up to this premiere we have been able to take a closer look at the Ensemble Intercontemporain’s work on its development and production, through the rehearsals and other videos with previous information.

Thanks to Youtube we can personally experience the birth of an opera in the 21st century.

Facebook? Naturally!

Posted by Marcel Soleda on May 5, 2009  |  No Comments

In the midst of the upsurge of the web 2.0, where the users have taken control of the contents of Internet, the social networks seem to have become the main players in the movement. Facebook is the social networking website par excellence, so we need to be there too, and now we are!

You don’t need a Facebook account to visit our page; just click on the link at the top.

Our page on Facebook is not only ours; it is also the place where you can comment on whatever you like, make suggestions, announce events, and a lot more.

You can also take advantage of our seasonal promotions: mp3 downloads, concert invitations, links of interest…

Since Monday and until next week, you can download absolutely free the mp3 of Evocación para guitarra, by Isaac Albéniz. This work is one of the pieces on the latest CD from Javier Riba “La Guitarra Soñada“.

See you on Facebook!

A symphonic spring for Ramon Humet

Posted by Leticia Martin on May 4, 2009  |  1 Comment

This season is proving to be a prolific one as regards Ramón Humet’s symphonic activity. The performances of “Escenas de pájaros” by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra conducted by Roberto Minczuk and the OBC conducted by Rubén Gimeno have been followed by a premiere: “Sol de primavera”, a work commissioned by the Auditorio Nacional de Música to mark its 20th anniversary. The work was performed for the first time on the 3 May at the Auditorio Nacional, and on 5 May at the Auditori Nacional de Cataluña, by the JONC conducted by Manel Valdivieso.

Following this premiere, Ramón Humet will also be present at the Festival de Verano (Summer Festival) in Tarragona, where “Gagaku” will be premiered by the OBC, who will also play “Un vent transparent” at the Auditorio de Vilaseca on 19 June.

(Castellano) La Tierra de Jesús Rueda, en Noticias Cuatro

Posted by Marcel Soleda on December 3, 2008  |  1 Comment

We are sorry but this entry is only available in Castellano and Català for the time being.

Madrid Premiere of “La Tierra”, by Jesús Rueda

Posted by Leticia Martin on November 14, 2008  |  No Comments

As part of its current season, the National Orchestra of Spain, under the baton of Pedro Halffter, presents in Madrid La Tierra (The Earth) by Jesús Rueda. The piece was commissioned by the Madrid conductor to complement Gustav Holst’s suite The Planets, and originally premiered in June 2007, performed by the Seville Symphony Orchestra.

In composing the suite, Holst drew on myriad sources, mixing symbolism, astrology and even chemistry, with more earthly matters such as the horrors of war (it was written during World War I). This is especially evident in Mars, a score that has been used often as background music, most famously perhaps in “Star Wars”.

Over time, much of the symbolism attached to The Planets has been lost, leaving its most universal and astronomical facets, from which Jesús Rueda drew inspiration for his composition.

La Tierra.mp3

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