The Basque National Orchestra will perform for the first time at the new Bordeaux Auditorium

On April 11th and 12th, the Basque National Orchestra will give two concerts at the Bordeaux Auditorium as part of the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine season concert programme and in the context of a new exchange. The BNO is the first foreign orchestra to perform on the stage of the city's newly opened concert hall. Under the direction of conductor Carlo Rizzi, in Bordeaux the Orchestra will perform for the first time with the pianist Luis Fernando Pérez. The programme taken to Bordeaux by the Orchestra will include works by Guridi, Bizet and Falla. The last of the three will be recorded live by the Mirare label. Beforehand, the Orchestra will perform the same pieces on April 9th in Vitoria and 10th in Bilbao as part of its 11th regular Season Concert Programme, also conducted by the Italian Carlo Rizzi and featuring Luis Fernando Pérez as guest soloist.

Policy of exchanges, exchanges of culture. In its endeavour to spread the Basque culture to all corners of the world, added to the invitation to participate in prestigious festivals and concert seasons such as the Schleswig-Holstein and Brazil's Mozarteum, exchanges with other orchestras have played an essential part in the trajectory of the Basque Orchestra. This two-directional policy has doubly extended the Orchestra's artistic horizons. Not only has it opened the doors to far-off venues and audiences, it has also attracted the music of other symphony orchestras to the stages of its Season Concert Programme. Internationally, this exchange policy stemmed from our connection with the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine; in a subsequent development it has taken the Orchestra to tour Italy for an exchange with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi (2009) and on a visit to Germany with the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker (2011).

The Basque Orchestra is heading to Bordeaux for the sixth time. From Bordeaux to the world. In 1984, Bordeaux became the first international stop for the Basque National Orchestra, an ensemble strongly committed since its creation to acting as the ambassador for Basque culture worldwide. Later, in addition to several visits to the capital of Aquitaine, over its 31 years of history the Orchestra has made 14 international tours: halls in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, the UK and Italy in Europe and Argentina, Chile and Brazil in America have all hosted concerts by the Basque Orchestra. Among them are the Vienna Kontzerthaus, the Munich Herkulesaal, the Berlin Kontzerthaus, the Zurich Tonhalle, Sao Paulo Hall, Milan Auditorium and the Colón Theatre in Buenos Aires. Somewhere around a hundred concerts and thousands of kilometres covered with the aim of spreading word of the Orchestra's music and the production of Basque creators down through the years. Our efforts have earned us a place not only in the European musical circuit, but also in Latin America, thus boosting ties with the Basque community overseas.