Ana Belén García and Ana Aguado will play the unique instrument housed in the walls of the Symphonic Hall as if it were an orchestra.

 

The Auditorio de Tenerife offers on Sunday [19th] at 12:00 noon the concert El órgano vs la orquesta (Organ vs orchestra). The two members of A2 Duo will play the unique instrument housed in the walls of the Symphonic Hall at the same time as if it were a symphony orchestra. General admission tickets cost 15 euros, and discounts are available for audiences under 30 years of age, students, the unemployed and large families.

El órgano vs la orquesta (Organ vs orchestra) is a programme featuring works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Gustav Merkel, Camille Saint-Saëns, Piotr Ilich Tchaikovsky and Edward Elgar. The organ concerts of the Auditorio are organised in collaboration with the San Miguel Arcángel Royal Canarian Academy of Fine Arts (RACBA).

A2 Dúo is formed by the organists Ana Aguado (Palencia) and Ana Belén García (Andoain, Gipuzkoa). These young professionals undertook their musical studies at different conservatoires and schools of great prestige: San Sebastián, Palencia, Barcelona, Pau, Amsterdam and Toulouse, receiving classes from masters such as Michel Bouvard, Esteban Landart, Esteban Elizondo, Óscar Candendo, Jan Willem Jansen, Jesús Martín Moro, Roberto Fresco, Jacques Van Oortmersen and Loïc Mallié, among others.

With extensive experience in the field of teaching and concerts, these two organists performed their first concert as a duo in June 2015 on one of the most representative organs of French romantic organ building: the great Cavaille-Coll organ of the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Chorus in San Sebastian (1863), where Ana Belén is the resident organist.

Ana Aguado has taught organ classes at different centres, such as the Higher Conservatoire of Music of Malaga. She currently works at the Professional Conservatoire of Music of León and runs and is a teacher at the "Fray Domingo de Aguirre" Provincial School of Organ. Ana Belén García is a director and teacher at the Lourdes Iriondo Music School in Urnieta (Gipuzkoa) as well as a repertoire performer with the Easo choir in San Sebastian and director of the International Organ Festival of the San Sebastian Musical Fortnight.

With a very versatile repertoire that explores all styles and periods of organ music, A2 Dúo investigates compositions and adaptations for organs played by four hands offering several performances at different international music festivals.

According to the musicologist and president of RACBA, Rosario Àlvarez, regarding this work "unlike his religious works, Johann Sebastian Bach intended his four Orchestral Suites for the haute bourgeoisie of Leipzig". The fourth (BWV 1069), formed by 5 movements with a marked French

character, a striking Overture, an elegant Minuet and an agile and resolute Réjouissance, will be performed. “It is worth highlighting that the transcription chosen for this occasion was produced by the composer, organist and pianist Max Reger, whose 150th birth anniversary is being celebrated", the expert explains.

The next work following in this matinee is one of the most well-known from the original repertoire for two organists: The Sonata no.1 by the German organist and composer Gustav Adolf Merkel. “This splendid and solid composition exudes influences of some of the great names of the era such as Josef Rheinberger and Felix Mendelssohn, and in the central Adagio, it is possible to find the lyricism that the latter composer used to display", Álvarez points out.

The Bacchanale, one of the most well-known pieces from the great opera Samson & Delilah by the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns, begins the last of the three acts that comprise this work based on the Biblical story of the warrior Samson and the beautiful Delilah. According to the musicologist, "this sensual dance is characterised by the use of exuberant rhythms and winding and exotic melodic lines created using oriental scales, resources combined with the sole aim of recreating in the minds of listeners the shameless festival in honour of the god Bacchus held to mark the arrest of Samson by the Philistines using Delilah”.

Alongside the ballet Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker is one of the most popular works by Piotr Ilich Tchaikovsky. Before its premiere, the musician selected eight of its songs, thus creating the Nutcracker Suite op. 71a as a concert work premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre in 1892 in Saint Petersburg that was conducted by the composer himself. Three pieces from this collection will be performed in this concerto, "which simply had to include the very famous Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, featuring the peculiar timbre of the celesta", says Rosario Álvarez. The two remaining numbers are March and the Waltz of the Flowers. The latter is - in the words of the Racba's president - "an example of the high level of compositional sophistication to which Tchaikovsky subjected one of the nineteenth-century genres par excellence, as a result of the extensive mastery he had of the orchestra and his unquestionable ties to ballet”.

The series of marches of the collection Pomp and Circumstance have become the second national anthem of Great Britain, being performed at the end of each season of the Proms which, year after year, are held at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The collection owes its name to a phrase that can be read in Othello by Shakespeare. The audience can enjoy the fourth march, which the composer himself described as "rhythmic and ceremonial”. “The finishing touch to conclude a programme that encapsulates and impeccably combines seriousness, fun, difficulty and solemnity", Álvarez predicts.

The organ of the Auditorio de Tenerife was built in the 21st century with 3,835 pipes by the prestigious organ builder Albert Blancafort and his team. It is considered a unique instrument in the world for its design, sound and musical ranges. The tickets are available on the website www.auditoriodetenerife.com,  at the auditorium's box office or by dialling the phone number 902 317 327 from Monday to Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 05:00 p.m., Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 02:00 p.m.