Friday 24 March, 2023

The Basque National Orchestra is making its debut in Poland with a great tour made up of four concerts

The Basque National Orchestra is making its debut in Poland with a great tour made up of four concerts

Invited to lead off the programming of the Beethoven Festival, one of the most important classical music festivals in Poland, the Basque National Orchestra is visiting Warsaw, Wrocław, Krakow, and Katowice –respectively– from March 28 to 31. 

This is the first international tour since before the pandemic for the orchestra and it represents a historic presence in one of the cradles of European classical music.

The Beethoven Festival was founded in 1997 by composer Krzysztof Penderecki (who passed away three years ago) along with his wife Elzbieta Penderecka, who is now the president of the institution. Her long-standing relationship with main conductor Robert Trevino was key for the Basque National Orchestra to be invited to play at the Beethoven Easter Festival – an invitation that will take the orchestra to four of the most important musical cities in Poland: Warsaw, on March 28th; Wrocław, on the 29th; Krakow, on the 30th; and Katowice, on the 31st.

The Basque National Orchestra is the headliner for one of the most important classical music festivals of Poland. If you add up the capacity of the four auditoriums, the orchestra will perform before approximately 5,400 people, and tickets are practically sold out in all of the venues – a sign of the great expectation that the Basque National Orchestra has stirred since their visit was announced.

 

 

Robert Trevino at the helm of this new international challenge

 

Robert Trevino will lead this new international challenge for the Basque National Orchestra:

 

 

 

A very ambitious programme

 

The orchestra has prepared a very ambitious musical program (the same for all the cities) in which it will combine the Basque music of Ravel with Mahler.

Maurice Ravel is the orchestra's flagship composer as an example of Basque culture. The Basque National Orchestra has recently recorded two Ravel monographic albums with the prestigious Finnish label Ondine and under the direction of Robert Trevino. These albums include eleven of this composer from Ziburu's most important orchestral pieces. One of these pieces, Pavane pour une infante défunte, will open the concerts in Poland, to later move on to the interpretation of the famous Boléro, a world-renowned piece that the Basque National Orchestra has presented in recent times with a new angle – that of Ravel's purely Basque side.

The second part of the concerts features Symphony No. 5 by Gustav Mahler. This is a piece of great dimension and technical difficulty that the Basque National Orchestra has carefully prepared, as it was featured in their season concerts just a few weeks ago. Mahler holds a special place in Robert Trevino's heart and he is the composer with whom said conductor made his debut in 2018 with the Basque National Orchestra – also in Linz, Munich, and Bregenz (on that occasion with Symphony No. 4).

With this ambitious and complex programme, the Basque National Orchestra is aiming to act as a cultural ambassador for the Basque Country abroad, also wishing to showcase all its potential and strength so as to measure up against other great orchestras on the European circuit.

 

 

Travel plans and concerts

 

Before the orchestra goes on tour on Monday, March 27 (the eve of the opening concert in Warsaw), today, Friday, March 24, the last rehearsal is taking place. Juanjo Ocón has taken the baton these previous days of rehearsal, but it will be the main conductor Robert Trevino who will take command once in Poland.

 

Below are the dates, cities, and auditoriums where the Basque National Orchestra will offer concerts next week:

 

  1. Tuesday, March 28 (7:30 p.m.), Warsaw, National Philharmonic (1,072 tickets available).

Warsaw is the hometown of Frederic Chopin, one of the most important composers in history. The composer's prestigious International Piano Competition is held here. It is also the headquarters of the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra, a century-old institution whose current main conductor is Andrey Boreyko, the Basque National Orchestra's main guest conductor between 2009 and 2017. The tour gets its start at the legendary Warsaw National Philharmonic Hall – a place steeped in history.

 

  1. Wednesday, March 29 (19:00), Wrocław, Narodowe Forum Muzyki (1,800 tickets available).

Narodowe Forum Muzyki (the National Forum of Music), one of the largest and most modern venues in the country, hosts concerts by world-renowned orchestras and famed soloists and conductors. Wrocław has a recent history that features common ties with us, as it shared the title of 2016 European Capital of Culture with San Sebastián and, since then, both cities have been very close, especially on the artistic/cultural level.

 

  1. Thursday, March 30 (7:00 p.m.), Krakow, Philharmonic Concert Hall (720 tickets available).

The third stop of the tour will take place in one of the largest, oldest, and most important cities in Poland. The auditorium, with its long-standing tradition, is the headquarters of the hundred-year-old Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra.

 

  1. Friday, March 31 (7:30 p.m.), Katowice, NOSPR (1,800 tickets available).

The orchestra ends its tour with this fourth concert in Poland, in a city with marked mining activity. It is home to one of the largest and most modern auditoriums in Poland, the headquarters of the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra (NOSPR).

 

 

International presence of the Basque National Orchestra

 

The Basque National Orchestra is an organisation that is always true to its vocation to be an ambassador of Basque culture. For this reason, and throughout its 41-year history, the orchestra has been present on international stages in different ways and with different objectives.

It has done so in Festival and Seasons like the Biennale di Venezia and L'Opéra Royal du Château of Versalles. It has also participated in exchanges with other orchestras, such as the exchanges with the Düsseldorf Symphony and the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory of Milan, as well as the classical exchange with the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine (ONBA).

Having said that, the orchestra's best-known format is that of concert tours, with this tour being its 22nd international tour. Since 1984, the Orchestra has toured Central European countries immersed in history such as Austria, Germany, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom, and it has crossed the pond and landed at the Colón Theatre of Buenos Aires (Argentina), Santiago de Chile (Chile), and Sao Paulo (Brazil), among others. Now, the musical formation is focused on what may be one of its biggest milestones of the many international tours that it has been on in the past.

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