Raúl Junquera performs Tomasi’s demanding trumpet concert with the Orquesta de València and Beatriz Fernández
- He will perform tomorrow Wednesday with the Orquesta de València, of which is a soloist, conducted by Beatriz Fernández Aucejo
- The programme will feature the Spanish premiere of Strum by composer Jessy Montgomery
- The rhythmic and colourful programme is completed with Obertura cubana and the symphonic dances from West Side Story by Bernstein.
Tuesday, 15th April. The Orquesta de València will perform tomorrow Wednesday, at 7.30 p.m., in the Sala Iturbi of the Palau de la Música, an extraordinary concert to be conducted by the Valencian Beatriz Fernández Aucejo. It is a rhythmic and colourful programme in which Henry Tomasi’s Concert for trumpet stands out, which will be performed by the soloist of the orchestra, Raúl Junquera. The Spanish premiere of Strum by Jessy
Montgomery, George Gershwin’s Obertura Cubana and the famous symphonic dances from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story complete the repertoire.
The director of the Palau, Vicente Llimerá, wanted to emphasise with regard to this concert that “on the eve of the Easter holidays, we wanted to offer our public a playful and extremely melodic programme in which our trumpet soloist, Raúl Junquera, could display all his virtuosity and technique in a concert like Tomasi’s, very demanding, expressive and full of brilliant passages that will truly captivate the public”.
It is a concert whose finale is full of rhythmic energy, audacity and frenetic rhythm reminiscent of the language of jazz. Both Beatriz Fernández, from Paiporta, and Raúl Junquera from Catarroja, said that this concert “is dedicated to all the people who have suffered from the dana and to all those who have been with us to face all the helplessness, sadness and pain that this tragedy has generated’.
The programme will begin with an overture, Gerswhin’s fascination with Cuban music from a trip he made to Havana in 1932. Jessi Montgomery is an American violinist, composer and educator whose strumming technique is central to her idiom. Strum is built on a constant rhythmic weave, in which the string evokes the immediacy and freshness of popular music. And to conclude, Bernstein’s splendid Symphonic Dances for this modern Latin Romeo and Juliet that is the mythical film West Side Story, directed in 1961 by Robert Wise and, 50 years later, by Steven Spielberg.
Beatriz Fernández Aucejo was recently awarded Third Prize and the ARTE Prize at the ‘La Maestra’ Conducting Competition. In recent years she has been tutored and advised by Juanjo Mena, and she assists and works directly with Alondra de la Parra. She has conducted the orchestras of Valencia, Sinfónica Región de Murcia, Sinfónica de Navarra, ADDA Simfònica, de la Comunidad Valenciana, Filarmónica de Gran Canaria, de Extremadura, Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa, Sinfónica de Castilla y León, de Córdoba, Simfònica de les Illes Balears, Paris Mozart Orchestra, Sinfónica de Barcelona y Nacional de Cataluña, Filarmónica de Málaga, Orchestre Démos National de la Philarmonie de Paris and Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla, among others. It is worth mentioning his recent debut conducting the Orquesta Nacional de España and the San Diego Symphony Orchestra.
Raúl Junquera is a founding member of the brass quintet Art of Brass Valencia as well as the quartet UNCLASSICAL, Trio Cabanilles, Bolling Quartet, Three Bells and forms a duo with organist Arturo Barba. His solo performances include the concert for trumpet and symphonic band, The Priest or the seven day, which was dedicated to him by the composer T. Aparicio Barberán. In 2020 he premiered the Concierto Galdosiano for 2 trumpets and orchestra by A. Valero-Castells, with the Orquesta de València conducted by L. Hager. He has been trumpet soloist with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Bilbao and the Banda Sinfónica Municipal de València. He has collaborated with ensembles such as the Sinfónica Nazionale dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia di Roma, the orchestras of Valencia, Cordoba, Ciudad de Granada, the symphony orchestras of the Principality of Asturias, the Balearic Islands and Madrid, among others.