In addition to classical repertoires, a project is beginning that puts a spotlight on contemporary Canarian composers   

 

The Tenerife Island Council presented the 2022-2023 subscription holder season of the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra that begins on 9 September with the performance of The Emperor by Beethoven. It will extend to 23 June with a programme that includes The Pathétique Symphony by Tchaikovsky. A total of 49 works by 37 composers will be performed in the eighteen concerts of this series which includes sixteen composers, twenty soloists and two international choirs. The details were announced today [26th] by the president of the Island Council, Pedro Martín, the island’s minister of Culture, Enrique Arriaga, and the honorary conductor of the orchestra, Víctor Pablo Pérez.

Pedro Martín stated that “this season will get underway without limitations after the restrictions we had during the pandemic. We are delighted to recover the Symphony Orchestra in all of its splendour, an orchestra that is the pride and heritage of Tenerife”. The president of the Council highlighted the role of Víctor Pablo Pérez, “the guiding light behind the orchestra, and held in great prestige and affection among citizens”.

Likewise, Martín highlighted that in this new season “the Island’s Council wants to highlight the talent of contemporary Canarian composers” and to do so it intends to select a Canarian artist every year to present their work and, in turn, will serve as a curator at the concert. This time, it will be the Tenerife local Rubens Askenar, whose Poema de sombras para clarinete y ensemble (Poem of shadows for clarinet and ensemble) will be premiered.   

Enrique Arriaga described the season that will begin in September as “exciting” and not only highlighted the subscription-holder concerts. “The Tenerife Symphony Orchestra carries out important work in its educational and social sector as it has done this year, with the participation of more than 2,700 people from 21 groups” and he recalled that the orchestra had been a pioneer in Spain for these types of concerts, through the initiative of Víctor Pablo Pérez during his time as a lead conductor. 

The island’s minister for Culture stated that the offer of the next season “will begin in October at the Tenerife II Penitentiary Centre with two days of a workshop and a concert before continuing with a visit to four social-health centres, as part of the Open Music programme”. The proposals for school children and families are spread over the months of November, February and May.

Víctor Pablo Pérez stated that “it is an honour for me to present a season of excitement, optimism and a sense of the moment that the Island Board of Music has prepared after this long period that has completely messed up all of society and also culture”.

For the honorary director, “the Symphony Orchestra will perform twelve monumental symphonies, with a journey from Mendelssohn to Berio, encompassing everything from Romanticism to all of the 20th century”. “There will also be twelve new pieces that the orchestra adds to its repertoire, including the world premiere of the work of Rubens Askenar, a composer from Los Realejos with an intense and successful international career”.

Among the new additions in the repertoire is Elijah, by Mendelssohn, which can be heard -conducted by Víctor Pablo Pérez- on 31 March in the Symphony Hall of the Auditorio de Tenerife and a day before at the Cathedral of Laguna, as part of the collaboration between the Council and the Diocese. Both events will have the Cor de Cambra del Palau de la Música Catalana choir, which Víctor Pablo Pérez described as “one of the great choirs of Europe”, conducted by Xavi Puig, and the participation of the soloists Alicia Amo (soprano), Anna Alás (mezzosoprano), James Gilchrist (tenor) and Josep-Ramon Olivé (baritone). 

Víctor Pablo Pérez will conduct the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra in two more programmes. In the first of them, the Unfinished Symphony by Schubert is included, “which I want to dedicate to the people who have lost their lives during the pandemic and the invasion in Ukraine” and his last appearance next season will be to tackle Bruckner, “one of the most beloved composers for this orchestra since it had great success at the Bruckner Festival held in Madrid and where the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra was the only Spanish orchestra present and rubbed shoulders with major international groups”.

The new season will involve the presence of sixteen prestigious and emerging conductors. In addition to Víctor Pablo Pérez, there will be five female composers and only one of them, Catherine Larsen-Maguire, is returning. Marta Gardolinska -in the opening concert, Shiyeon Sung, Corinna Niemeyer and Anu Tali are making their debut conducting the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra, as are Jean Claude Casadesus, Joseph Swensen, Fabián Panisello and Hugh Wolff. The list of maestros who will conduct the orchestra is completed with names that are well-known to the Tenerife audience, such as Jaume Santonja, Daniel Raiskin, Guillermo García Calvo, Nuno Coelho, Felix Mildenberger and Edmon Colomer.

The guest musicians this season include the pianists Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Andrei Korobeinikov and Sandro Gegechkori, winner of the María Canals Competition 2021, the violinists Dmitri Makthin, Alexandra Conunova, Benjamin Schmid, Karen Gomyo and Abel Tomás, the cellists Johannes Moser, Asier Polo and Kian Soltani, the Tenerife clarinet player Maximiliano Martín Lechado and the accordion player Ksenija Sidorova. The double bass player of the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra, Iker Sánchez will make his debut as a soloist. The list of participants in the orchestra season is completed with the soprano Katharina Ruckgaber and the baritone Stèphane Degout. 

This year there is the option of buying a subscription for the eighteen concerts with prices starting at 306 Euros. Today marks the start of the period for renewing subscriptions from the 2019-2020 season, which can be done through the three normal channels of the Auditorio de Tenerife (online, ticket office and by phone). This preferential period ends on 6 June. 

On the following day, 7 June, a period of one week will open for the subscription holders of 2019-2020 who were unable to come in the previous period because they want to change the seat they had three years ago. Once the preferential treatment ends, a new subscription-holders’ period begins on 14 June. It will also be possible to purchase a subscription only for the first nine concerts of the season. Lastly, individual tickets will go on sale from 5 July. All the packages, periods, benefits and special prices of tickets can be consulted on the website www.sinfonicadetenerife.es.