The concert takes place within the framework of the Tenerife Viola Masterclass and includes a free talk before the concert.

 

This Thursday [21st], the Auditorio de Tenerife welcomes the concert of the Viola bouquet, in the framework of the Tenerife Viola Masterclass. The event takes place at 7:30 p.m., in the Chamber Hall, although there will be a talk before starting at 6.30 p.m. in the adjoining room. The tickets are on sale at a single price of €15, with discounts available.

It is a repertoire for the viola d'amore, string quartet and harpsichord/organ with works by Antonio Vivaldi, Marin Marais, Franz Schubert, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, John Zorn and Garth Knox.

The performers of this concert are international artists linked to the Tenerife Viola Masterclass. Garth Knox, who studied at the Royal College of Music in London with Fredrick Riddle, will play the viola d'amore. In 1983 he was also invited by Pierre Boulez to join the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris and was a member of the Arditti Quartet.

The violinist Geneviève Laurenceau won the First Prize at the Novossibirsk International Competition and the Grand Prize at the Maurice Ravel Academy in Saint-Jean-de-Luz; she has taught at the Philippe Jaroussky Academy of Music.

The violinist David Ballesteros was born in Tenerife and studied violin with Óscar Hernández, Franco Gulli and Joseph Guingold. He then continued his studies of Chamber Music with Bernad Greenhouse and of Orchestra conducting with Karl Roskott. He is co-leader of the bandArt Chamber Orchestra and a violinist with the London Symphony Orchestra.

Macarena Pesutic, viola player, is the artistic director of Tenerife Viola Masterclass. She has won the RWE Competition in Leipzig (Germany) and the Music Teachers National Association Competition (USA). She has been teaching at the Higher Music Conservatory of the Canary Islands since 2005.

Agnes Vesterman, on cello, studied at Boulogne-Billancourt in Paris and in New York with Harvey Shapiro. She joined the Quatuor Arpeggione and in 2006 formed a duo with Garth Knox. She teaches at the Paris Conservatoire and the Conservatoire of Boulogne-Billancourt.

Sara Johnson, who will play harpsichord and organ depending on the programme, has participated in festivals such as the Trigonale (Austria), the Contemporary Music Festival of Cologne ON and the Pyrenees Early Music Festival. She has been a member of the European Union Baroque Orchestra.

The concert begins with Vivaldi's Concerto for viola d'amore, string quartet and continuo in D major RV 392. The composer himself introduced this instrument at the Pietà, an institution where he taught. The programme will continue with Les folies d'Espagne, published in 1701 by Marin Marais, one of the leading figures of the French viola da gamba school.

The following work, Stranger for viola and viola d'amore by Garth Knox, commissioned by and dedicated to Melia Watras, is inspired by an old Irish tune composed by the Irish harpist Turlough O'Carolan (1670 - 1738). Schubert's Trio for strings in B flat major D. 471 will close the first part of the concert.

After a short intermission, Trois Petites Entropies, part of a collection commissioned from Garth Knox by Radio France, will be played, followed by the Duo for violin and viola in B flat major KV 424 composed by Mozart in 1783. The next work is by John Zorn, an American composer and saxophonist who began his career in the New York jazz avant-garde in the early 1980s, and this version of Amhiel from The Book of Angels is an arrangement by Garth Knox for viola d'amore and a string quartet. Finally, Knox's Passacaille for viola d'amore, organ and string quartet will be performed, in which the composer uses natural harmonics as the main resource.

Juana María Bolaños Polegre, a graduate of the Musicology Department of the Higher Music Conservatory of the Canaries, will give a preliminary talk in the Sala Avenida. The programme notes, which can be consulted on the Auditorio's website, are signed by Marta Álvarez García, lecturer in the same department.

The tickets are available on the website www.auditoriodetenerife.com, at the auditorium's box office from Monday to Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 05:00 p.m. or by dialling the phone number 902 317 327 in the same timetable. Check the special discounts for the audience under 30 years of age, students, unemployed, and large families.