Karl-Heinz Steffens will conduct a programme with works by Ligeti, Adams and Bartok

 

The Tenerife Symphony Orchestra faces this week its sixteenth concert of the season with a programme that includes works by György Ligeti, John Adams and Bela Bartok, with the conductor Karl-Heinz Steffens and the debut of the Quiroga Quartet in the season of the Insel Council's orchestra. This new concert takes place in the Auditorio de Tenerife this Friday, 27 May at 7:30 p.m.

The repertoire selected for this occasion begins with Concert Românesc, by György Ligeti, a score that is being performed for the first time by the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra. The work, composed in 1951 but premièred twenty years later due to Soviet censorship, is inspired by different popular melodies from the Romanian region of Transylvania, where the author lived during his early childhood, adapting them to the orchestral language in four movements.

The Tenerife Symphony Orchestra will continue the concert with another new release in its repertoire. It is Absolute Jest, by John Adams. This creation for a string quartet and orchestra reinterprets the influence of Ludwig van Beethoven. The composition emerged from the commission by the San Francisco Symphony to celebrate its centenary in 2012 and it is a paraphrase inspired by the work of the genius of Bonn, which reinterprets it and integrates it into the luminous minimalism that characterises the North American author.

In the second part of the evening, the Concerto for Orchestra, BB 123 by Bela Bartok, a work considered one of the most popular by the Hungarian author and a commission by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation released in 1944. This composition combines elements of western classical music and Hungarian folklore music.

The Cuarteto Quiroga is performing for the first time with the Symphony of Tenerife and it is considered one of the most outstanding groups of the new European generation. It is also recognised by international critics for its bold and refreshing performances.

The Spanish group has won awards at different international competitions for string quartets (Bordeaux, Paolo Borciani, Geneva, Beijing, Paris), the Ojo Crítico Award from RNE and the Gold Medal of Palau of Barcelona. They are regular performers on the world’s most important stages, from Berlin to New York, Amsterdam, Paris, London, Stockholm, Rome, Prague, Warsaw, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Ottawa, Los Angeles and Washington.

Their regular collaborators include musicians of the stature of Martha Argerich, Veronika Hagen, Valentin Erben, Jörg Widmann, Jonathan Brown and Javier Perianes, who will soon be at the season of the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra. This musical project is strongly involved with contemporary creation, recording releases of works by Peter Eötvös, Cristóbal Halffter, Jose María Sanchez Verdú, Antón García Abril and Marisa Manchado, among others.

The German conductor Karl-Heinz Steffens, who is once again leading the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra, is the current conductor of the Prague State Opera and he also does direction and artistic advisory work in the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra.

During the current season, he will direct the productions The Flying Dutchman and The Distant Sound, by Schreker, among other works, as well as continuing the “Musica non Grata” series, devoted to the figure of composers who were victims of the despotism of the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century.

Steffens has collaborated with different musical groups such as the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Philharmonic Orchestras of Berlin, Israel and Munich, the National Orchestra of Lyon, Toronto Symphony Orchestra or de Tonhalle of Zurich, among others. He recently received the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in recognition of his services to music.

The tickets for the concert in the Auditorio de Tenerife can be purchased on the website www.sinfonicadetenerife.es, at the auditorium's box office and by dialling the phone number 902 317 327 from Monday to Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.