Orquesta Barroca de Tenerife’s second season starts with six concerts
Orquesta Barroca de Tenerife second season includes six concerts, four at Auditorio de Tenerife and two in Granadilla and Buenavista del Norte. In a press conference, the Cabildo’s Director for Culture, José Luis Rivero, and the director of Auditorio de Tenerife’s resident ensemble, Conrado Álvarez, talked about the second season, which will include a careful selection of Baroque compositions to be played by young musicians, mostly from Tenerife, and guest conductors like Juan de la Rubia or Bruno Procopio.
José Luis Rivero explained that “having a steady Baroque orchestra in Tenerife is a sign of the cultural maturity of musicians, who have received the right education, and also of the institutions which host them. This way a high quality programme can be made available to people on the Island”. Conrado Álvarez added that “the audience is ready to listen to this experience and go from the intangible, as for instance listening to Baroque music on Spotify, to the tangible and sensitive when listening live to early instruments music”.
The first meeting with Baroque music played with period instruments is taking place on Thursday, 13 September at 7:30 pm in Sala de Cámara [Chamber Hall] at Auditorio de Tenerife. This event, entitled Bachiana, is the first concert the Tenerife ensemble exclusively devotes to German composer Johann Sebastian Bach. It would be the first time two Baroque oboes and flute are played together. The orchestra conductor says that some of the maestro’s best-known pieces will be recognised but that others will surprise the audience. “We’ll have the chance to listen to the skilful Tenerife musician Pablo Sosa, who is playing with the Baroque for the first time”, Conrado Álvarez revealed.
On 13 December at 7:30 pm, the Orquesta Barroca is putting on the show Noël a la francesa, conducted by Bruno Procopio, a Brazilian harpsichord player resident in Paris. The French concertante style of the 17th and 18th centuries has differentiating features like melodic turns in duos that are full of ornaments within the tonal harmony, with plenty of chord progressions shaped from the colourful basso continuo with symmetrical uniform rhythms but full of inegalité.
The Festival Internacional de Música Antigua de Tenerife is offering two replicas of this concert on the Island. The first will be on 15 December at Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Merced, in Granadilla, at 7:00 pm. The following day, 16 December, the same repertoire will be offered in Iglesia Nuestra Señora de los Remedios, in Buenavista at 5:00 pm. Admission to both concerts by Orquesta Barroca is free of charge. José Luis Rivero explains that “Making the Orquesta Barroca de Tenerife travel through the Festival Internacional de Música Antigua brings these programmes to people’s local churches”.
And there is yet more news this year: the QB Package which offers an additional 15% discount on ticket prices for the autumn concerts of Orquesta Barroca de Tenerife and Quantum Ensemble.
The Baroque ensemble is giving their third concert on 14 March, Italianissimi, to be conducted by concertmaster Adrián Linares. The programme will include compositions by Pietro Antonio Locatelli (1695 - 1764) and Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni (1669-1751).
The last concert in Orquesta Barroca de Tenerife second season is Be water, my friend, which we can listen to on 23 May with Juan de la Rubia as harpsichord and guest conductor. Water is the leitmotiv of this meeting with Baroque music which includes a selection of works by Handel (1685-1759) and Telemann (1681-1767).
Tickets and packages can be bought via Auditorio de Tenerife’s usual channels: at the box office from 10:00 am to 7:30 pm, Monday to Saturday; through the website www.auditoriodetenerife.com or calling 902 317 327. Most of the period instruments played by the Orquesta Barroca de Tenerife belong to the collection of Real Academia Canaria de las Bellas Artes, in whose headquarters the Tenerife group holds some of their rehearsals. José Luis Rivero is grateful to the Academia for their collaboration because “playing with early instruments enables us to approach these repertoires from a historicist standpoint, in the sound conditions they were written”.
The Orquesta Barroca de Tenerife -part of the Tenerife 2030 strategy- was founded by Andmúsica, the Association for the Standardization of Early Music in the Canary Islands, to promote young Canarian players educated in Europe in period styles and instruments, providing the appropriate coordination platform to encourage the historical music heritage from other sound perspectives. This brings all musical forms from the 17th and 18th centuries to new audiences and adds value to the Canarian cultural scene.