Basque National Orchestra
From season 2009/2010, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Music Director, and Andrey Boreyko, Principal Guest Conductor, will compose the new Music Direction of the Basque National Orchestra.Founded 26 years ago, the Basque National Orchestra figures among the best of its kind in Spain. A perfect cog in the wheel of Basque cultural and social life, the Orchestra is currently supported by over 7,000 followers, the strongest backing in its history. With a concert attendance rate of 92%, given its 150,000 spectators each year, it is one of the most popular classical music entities in the Basque Country. The Orchestra has made several international tours, regularly participating in festivals while rounding off its concerts with educational performances for children and releasing several CDs principally dedicated to spreading knowledge of the symphonies written by prolific Basque composers.
More than 150,000 spectators have therefore attended the over 100 concerts organised by or participated in each season by the Basque National Orchestra as part of an intensive and widely varying activity closely followed and warmly recognised by the general public. We are a highly versatile Orchestra capable of adapting to each of the musical formats tackled, ranging from subscribers' programmes, to opera, our Miramón Matinées, Family Concerts, recordings and tours; and to each of the stages on which we perform these works: the auditoriums of San Sebastián, Bilbao, Pamplona, the Teatro Principal in Vitoria, the orchestra pit at the Palacio Euskalduna, the Orchestra's Miramón headquarters, and the big concert halls or our numerous international tours.
From season 2009/2010, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Music Director, and Andrey Boreyko, Principal Guest Conductor, will compose the new Music Direction of the Basque National Orchestra. Created in 1982 on initiative from the Basque Government Department of Culture, the Orchestra has been taken through its steps since 2001 until June 2008 by Gilbert Varga and Cristian Mandeal. Its first conductor was Enrique Jordá, followed by Maximiano Valdés, Mathias Kuntzsch, Miguel Ángel Gómez Martínez and Hans Graf. Having become the musical director alongside Mario Venzago in 1997, Gilbert Varga was joined by Cristian Mandeal in 2001.
A long list of conductors and soloists has performed with the Orchestra on different occasions. Some of the important conductors to have participated in its performances are Yehudi Menuhin, Paul McCreesh, Yakov Kreizberg, Oleg Caetani, Jerzy Semkov, Lawrence Foster, Krysztof Penderecki, Jesús López Cobos and Josep Pons.
In addition to the above are top-line soloists including Maria Joao Pires, Katia and Marielle Labeque, Bruno Leonardo Gelber, Radu Lupu, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Mischa Maisky, Antonio Meneses, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Christian Zacharias, Leonidas Kavakos, Zoltan Kocsis, Joaquín Achúcarro, Dëzso Ranki, Heinrich Schiff, Nikolaj Znaider, María Bayo, Carlos Alvarez, Carlos Mena, Ainhoa Arteta and a long list of others.
Apart from its excursions to Spanish festivals and tours, the Orchestra has twelve international outings to its name, the first of which dates back to 1984. Since then, the Orchestra has been twice in South America. At the first time, in 2000, performed at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Teatro Municipal in Santiago de Chile, etc. And, in september 2007, the Orchestra has been in Sala Sao Paulo, participating in the season of Mozarteum Brasileiro. Apart from that, it has concentrated its numerous performances on a variety of Central European cities in Germany (Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Bayreuth), Austria (Vienna, Salzburg, Linz), Switzerland (Lucerne, Zurich, Gstaad) and the UK.
26 years down the line, the Orchestra has made over thirty recordings in different musical genres and styles: a Basque composers' collection (Jesús Guridi, Jose Mª Usandizaga, Jesús Arámbarri, Andrés Isasi, Francisco Escudero, Pablo Sorozábal, Aita Donostia, Tomás Garbizu, Aita Madina and Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga), a triple CD with works commissioned by the Orchestra from Carmelo Bernaola, Anton Larrauri, Félix Ibarrondo, Luis de Pablo, Francisco Escudero and Rafael Castro; a monograph on Maurice Ravel; the first recorded recital by the baritone from Malaga, Carlos Alvarez, a recording with the Basque singer/songwriter Benito Lertxundi and different recordings for the RTVE label and for children, etc. The orchestra has recently presented Francisco Escudero´s Gernika opera's world première.
The Basque National Orchestra has been a member of the Spanish Association of Symphony Orchestras (AEOS) since its creation in 1992.
