Hèctor Parra, winner of the Ernst von Siemens Composer’s Prize

Posted by Cristina Martí on May 6, 2011  |  Leave a comment

As we already announced in our blog on 14 February of this year, the Catalan Hèctor Parra will receive one of Ernst von Siemens Foundation Prizes for Music Composition on 24 May 2011.
 The award is worth 40,000 euros and includes the commission of a work for the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. Parra and co-winners, Steven Daverson and Hans Thomalla, will be given their awards during a musical celebration at the Cuvilliés Theatre in Munich, when the commissioned works written by these young composers will be premiered.

The board of trustees of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation considers Parra one of the most promising young composers: “What transpires in the music of Hector Parra is exactly what defines art: it allows us to indulge ourselves in the voluptuousness of the passing of present time.”

For Parra, this award “represents an invitation from the jury for me to be bolder in my creative work. Sometimes, you put on the brakes, you become less adventurous, because the music business, the system of commissions and concerts, saps your energy and can even make you lose your balance. This prize from the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation will give me renewed energy. It’s like a special vitamin to boost my creativity.”

Read more at docenotas.com.

Casablancas, finalist at the XV Music Awards

Posted by Cristina Martí on February 27, 2011  |  Leave a comment

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.

Hèctor Parra wins an Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Composers’ Prize

Posted by Cristina Martí on February 14, 2011  |  1 Comment

The Barcelona composer Hèctor Parra has won one of the coveted three prizes for the promotion of new music awarded by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. He is the first Catalan to do so. The award is worth 40,000 euros and includes a commission for a work. The prize-giving act will take place on 24 May 2011 during a musical celebration at the Theatre Cuvilliés in Munich and his piece will be premiered by the Ensemble Recherche. The board of trustees of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, which includes the composers Wolfgang Rihm and Helmut Lachenmann among others, considers Parra to be one of the most promising young composers: “What transpires in the music of Hector Parra is exactly what generally tends to define art: it allows us to indulge ourselves in the voluptuousness of the passing of present time.”

In addition to Hector Parra, the British composer Steven Daverson and the German Hans Thomalla, based in the USA, received promotional prizes for young composers, while the Ernst von Siemens International Music Award, worth 200,000 euros, went to the great German composer Aribert Reimann in recognition of his complete works. The Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation distributes a total of 2.5 million euros. In 2011, it will support over one hundred contemporary music projects in twenty countries.

Hèctor Parra

Born in Barcelona in 1976, Hèctor Parra studied at the Barcelona Conservatory, where he was awarded Prizes with Distinction in Composition, Piano and Harmony. He studied piano with Mª Jesús Crespo, and composition with David Padrós, Brian Ferneyhough and Jonathan Harvey, as well as with Michael Jarrell at the Haute École de Musique in Geneva. He was an active participant in the composition workshops at Royaumont and the Centre Acanthes (France), Takefu (Japan), Impuls Graz (Austria), and he completed the International Course in Musical Composition and Computing at the IRCAM in 2002-2003. In 2004-2005 he was invited to take up a postgraduate residency at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique et Danse in Lyon. In 2005 he obtained a Masters in Art Aesthetics with first-class honours from the University of Paris VIII, under the tuition of Horacio Vaggione.

Despite his youth, he has a long record of composition and has received numerous awards and commissions. He currently holds the Chair of Electroacoustic Composition at the Aragon Conservatory of Music in Spain and in 2010 took up the post of lecturer in analysis and composition with the Manuel de Falla chair at the Cádiz Conservatory., He has also worked recently in close collaboration with the eminent Harvard theoretical physicist Lisa Randall in the opera “Hypermusic Prologue” and written the music for the film Equinoxe, directed by Laurent Carcélès, whose soundtrack has been recorded by the Ensemble intercontemporain.


His music is published by Editorial Tritó and, since 2010, by Universal Music Publishing (Durand, Paris) in addition. A CD with his trios and chamber music pieces performed by the Ensemble Recherche is available on the KAIROS label, as is Hypermusic Prologue, recorded by the Ensemble Intercontemporain and the IRCAM.

Riccardo Muti. The Art of Music Conducting

Posted by Marcel Soleda on January 31, 2011  |  2 Comments

Funny and spiring speech by Maestro Riccardo Muti, after receiving the Musician of the Year 2010 Award, of Musical America. He is both witty and wise when describing the difficult art of Music Conducting. You should not miss this.

Opening of the application period for participation in the Cadaqués Orchestra International Conducting Competition

Posted by Leticia Martin on October 13, 2009  |  Leave a comment

The application period for participation in the Cadaqués Orchestra international conducting competition will open soon. Thanks to this competition, prestigious conductors such as Gianandrea Noseda, Vasily Petrenko and Pablo González, winners in previous years, were able to give their careers a decisive push forward.

As on previous occasions, the competition includes both a classical orchestral repertoire, with works by composers such as Schubert, Beethoven and Mendelssohn, and Spanish music, old and new. The composer commissioned to write the compulsory piece for this 10th competition is José María Sánchez Verdú. It will be performed during the final stages of the competition.

The jury, chaired by the Russian maestro Gennady Rozhdestvensky, is made up of professionals from the world of music and – something that is basic to the proceedings of this competition – members of the Orquesta de Cadaqués itself.

Online application will be open from January 7th on the orchestra website, where you can view the terms and conditions, the history of the competition, and also the Orchestra’s activities. The competition repertoire may be acquired through www.trito.es.

Hèctor Parra, winner of the Premio Tendències award for up-and-coming creators

Posted by Leticia Martin on February 5, 2009  |  Leave a comment

The composer Hèctor Parra (Barcelona, 1976) has had a good start to 2009, a year that is going to confirm him as one of the most important Spanish composers on the international scene. On 19 January he received the Premio Tendencies for the outstanding, up-and-coming creator of the year in Catalonia, awarded by the Catalan edition of the newspaper El Mundo.

The composer was thrilled to win this prize, in particular because it represents recognition of his work in his home city, something that up till now has been more evident abroad. A good example of the interest this composer is arousing is the programming of his opera Hypermusic Prologue by the Teatre Liceo in Barcelona, undoubtedly his most ambitious work to date. This opera, with a libretto by the American physicist Lisa Randall, was commissioned by the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris, and will be premiered in that city before coming to the Barcelona theatre.

Madrid has also just recently been the venue for a concert with works by Hèctor Parra. As part of the programming of Musicadhoy the Ensemble Recherche played his works Abîme- Antigona IV, String Trio and Piano Trio nº1: Wortschatten. These works have been recorded by the same ensemble on a monographic CD produced by the Austrian label Kairos in conjunction with Caja Madrid.

Poética, by Jesus Torres, winner of the “Millenium Chamber Players” prize

Posted by Leticia Martin on February 5, 2009  |  1 Comment

Poética (2007), a work for a trio with piano and clarinet, by Jesús Torres, has won the “Millenium Chamber Players” prize awarded every year by the musicians of the Chicago ensemble.

This year there were over 300 competition entries and the jury, formed by Augusta Read Thomas, Kyung Mee Choi, Bernard Rands and George Flynn, admitted it had had difficulty in choosing a winner when it announced its decision.

As a prize Jesús Torres will receive a commission for a chamber work to be performed by the musicians of the “Millenium Chamber Players”. David Adamcyk and Miguel Villanueva received special mentions from the jury and Clifton Callender, Amos Elkana, Massimo Lauricella, Ned McGowan and Todd Tarantino received honourable mentions.

Poética is a work in five movements based on different texts by German poets: Novalis, Hölderlin, Rilke, Trakl and Celan. It was premiered by the Trío Arbós with the clarinettist José Luis Estellés.

Further information in Victor Rebullida’s blog.

Ramón Humet wins the “Ciutat de Tarragona” International Award for Musical Composition

Posted by Leticia Martin on December 19, 2008  |  Leave a comment

The score Gagaku by Ramón Humet has been chosen the winner of the 16th “Ciutat de Tarragona” International Award for Musical Composition. This was the jury’s decision after examining the thirty-two competing scores.
The prize money in this competition, organised by Tarragona City Council and sponsored by Repsol YPF and Spanish National Radio (RNE), amounts to 12,000 euros.

Gagaku, which lasts twelve minutes, is dedicated with thanks and admiration to the maestro Joan Guinjoan. The jury was made up of the musicians Tomás Marco, Héctor Parra, Vincent Paulet, Yves Prin, Zuriñe Gerenabarrena, Jean Pierre Dupuy and J. Mª Mestres-Quadreny. The winning work will be premiered in 2009 by the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya.

During his career Ramón Humet has won awards such as the Montreal Olivier Messiaen International Composition Prize and the Queen Sofia and the Joaquín Rodrigo-Villa de Madrid Composition Prizes. He has received commissions for the Festival Òpera de Butxaca and the Ensemble Residencias among others.

Among his projects for the future three commissions deserve special mention, a symphony for the JONC (Joven Orquesta Nacional de Cataluña), a chamber work for the Festival Nous Sons (Oriol Aymat – Sílvia Vidal duet) and a commission from the Fundación Caixa Cataluña for the pianist Alberto Rosado.

Reported in the Diari de Tarragona and www.mundoclasico.com. Further information at www.docenotas.es y www.catradio.cat

Gabriel Erkoreka in Zarzuela’s Palacio

Posted by Marcel Soleda on November 12, 2008  |  Leave a comment

Queen Sofía has met in the Zarzuela’s Palacio the recently winner of the XXVth Prize Reina Sofia of Musical Composition, Gabriel Erkoreka. Erkoreka has won this prize for his work Fuegos for orchestra.