Fifteen years after making their appearance on the Catalan classical scene, it continues to be impressive that the Franz Schubert Filharmonia orchestra -formerly Camera Musicae- manages to invite top-level international soloists and conductors to take them to stages in the territory where the public would otherwise amateur could not even dream of such a privilege.
The current season of this formation has been marked out especially by the presence of Joshua Bell in his double role as violinist and orchestra teacher, who sold out not only at the Palau de la Música Catalana with his interpretation of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, but at the Auditori Enric Granados in Lleida, the Teatre-Auditori in Sant Cugat and the Josep Carreras in Vila-seca.
For its next season at the Palau de la Música –its twelfth already–, the FSF announces a team of invited soloists and international conductors that consolidate it as a first-rate orchestra in Catalonia, no matter how much the Generalitat continues to classify it among the five ” prioritiesâ€, with support that does not reach 250,000 euros.
“Our demands remain the same, we propose that you join us more. It is very difficult to maintain a private orchestra in Europeâ€, says its chief conductor, Tomás Grau, the creator of this initiative “with musicians from the territory and for the territoryâ€.
The FSF will thus place itself under the orders of Polish masters of two generations: the veteran Christoph Eschenbach, who will bring the Viennese essences in which he has specialized (Beethoven’s 7th and Mozart’s Concerto for flute and harp), and the young and charismatic Krzysztof Urbanski (a phenomenon at 40), who will offer Tchaikovsky’s 4th and the Sibelius Concerto together with the South Korean violinist Soyoung Yoon.
Another debut with Tomás Grau’s formation will be that of the famous Ukrainian pianist Anna Fedorova, who has accumulated millions of views on YouTube of her Rachmaninovs. With the FSF she will play Concerto no. 3 by the Russian composer, one of the most appreciated and that the orchestra had yet to tackle.
On the other hand, the Ludwig Trio made up of the Tomà s brothers of the Casals Quartet together with the pianist Hyo-Sum Lim, will star in Beethoven’s Triple. The cycle will be opened by the Montenegrin guitarist MiloÅ¡ Karadaglić with El concierto de Aranjuez, and Mischa Maisky will complete the complete Bach Suites that he has been pouring out.
In addition, on the day that Beethoven’s 9th turns 200, it will sound with the Cor Madrigal and in the solo voices of the soprano Jone MartÃnez, the mezzo Tà nit Bono, the tenor Eamonn Mulhall and the baritone Carles Pachón. Although one of the big events -which is also out of subscription and will only be held at the Palau, without going on tour- will be the already announced concert by Ermonela Yaho with arias by Puccini in honor of Victoria de los Ãngeles, with the premiere of a symphony by Albert Guinovart dedicated to the Barcelona soprano.
Finally, the violinist Sayaka Shoji will close the course with the Four Seasons in the already emblematic pseudo-electronic version of Max Richter. It will be the second collaboration of the Japanese artist who plays a Stradivarius ‘Recamier’ from 1729.
Other iconic symphonic pieces that the orchestra will tackle will be The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky, one of the composers that the FSF has performed the most, for which it will have musicians from the Esmuc Orchestras in order to reach the long hundred instruments required . And also Dvorak’s New World Symphony.
Season ticket renewals and preferential ticket sales for season ticket holders are already available. As of April 24, the rest of the subscriptions will go on sale and it will be May 2 when individual tickets can be purchased, which for those subscribers who use the La Vanguardia ticket sales website, discounts of up to 2×1 are contemplated. .
