Friday 08 June, 2018

The Basque National Orchestra sets out on a major international tour with Robert Treviño at the helm

Austria and Germany will be its coming destinations between December 4th-8th.

Robert Treviño, artistic director of the tour, therefore extends his position as chief conductor to a total of five seasons.

Besides its outing to Versailles in March 2019, already announced in the presentation of the 2018/2019 season, the coming months will see a hugely important international artistic challenge. The Basque National Orchestra will set out on a tour of important Central European cities and concert halls of enormous musical tradition and exacting audiences to give three concerts: two in the Austrian cities of Linz and Bregenz, and one in Germany, at Munich’s iconic and coveted Herkulessaal. All three concerts will form part of famous subscribers seasons which enjoy tremendous audience backing.

This tour will be conducted by Robert Treviño, who will in the coming days complete the first of the three seasons signed as the chief conductor of the Basque National Orchestra and now extends his presence as the artistic director of the Orchestra for another two years. Robert Treviño will therefore encompass a musical period of five seasons, until 2021/2022.

The North American conductor is developing an intense international career. In Europe alone he has conducted, and with immense success, orchestras including the Stuttgart Symphony, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Rotterdam, the Viena Tonküstler, and the Munich Philharmonic, precisely at the Herkulessaal and where his Fifth Symphony by Mahler is still remembered. Robert Treviño is earning fame as a conductor for his performances of Mahler’s work and his recent versions of the German composer as frontman of the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic and the Zurich Tonhalle received public and critical acclaim. Now he wants to return to this legendary hall with Mahler on the music stands and with his Orchestra, which also gives a repeat performance after its first time round in 2003.

The German soprano Mojca Erdmann and the Israeli violinist Vadim Gluzman will be the guest soloists on this concert tour.

Programmes and concerts

The Orchestra will tour with three different programmes. It will open its three concerts with Basque music: Meditación by Aita Donostia in Linz and Siete Lieder (selection) by Pablo Sorozabal in Munich and Bregenz. The three concerts will include the second part of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, one of the most popular by the German composer, the solo part of which will be performed by the German soprano Mojca Erdmann. But each city will have a different tone in the first part of their concerts.

In Linz, and following Aita Donostia, the Orchestra and the soprano Erdmann will present a selection of arias for soprano and church sonatas by Mozart. In Bregenz, and after a selection from Sorozabal’s Siete lieder in the voice of Erdmann, the star of the first part will be Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto 2 with Vadim Gluzman as soloist.

Apart from Sorozabal's work, the exacting Herkulessaal in Munich will bring to the Orchestra music stands Elgar’s Enigma Variations, in the first part, in contrast with Mahler’s Fourth Symphony. This is a highly demanding programme which will highlight, under the baton of Robert Treviño, the strengths of the Basque National Orchestra.

The Orchestra will set out on tour on December 3rd and will give its concerts on the 4th in Linz, 6th December in Munich and 8th December in Bregenz.

Brucknerhaus (Linz), Herkulessaal (Munich) and Festspielhaus (Bregenz).

International presence of the Orchestra

The Basque National Orchestra is an institution which never fails to fulfil its vocation as ambassador of the Basque culture. That’s why, over its 36 years, it has taken to international stages in different ways and with a variety of objectives.

It has performed in several Festivals and Seasons, such as the Biennale di Venezia and the Opéra Royal Château de Versailles (which it regularly attends with the Malandain Ballet Biarritz, an experience it will repeat in March 2019 with the premiere of “Marie Antoinette”).

Also in the orchestra exchange format, such as its exchanges with the Düsseldorf and Milan’s Giuseppe Verdi orchestras or the classic exchange with the ONBA from Bordeaux.

But its best known format is that of its concert tours, of which this one represents international tour number 18. Since 1984, the Orchestra has toured Argentina, Chile, England and Italy. But above all it has given numerous performances in different Central European cities in Germany (Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Passau, Bayreuth, Augsburg, Hamburg, Bremen, Düsseldorf and Munich), Austria (Vienna, Salzburg and Linz) and Switzerland (Lucerne, Gstaad and Zurich). It will now repeat its performance in Munich and Linz and will appear for the first time in Bregenz.

We should highlight, as a new example of relations between the Basque Country, Bavaria and the Austrian region of Vorarlberg, that our visit to Bregenz will be preceded by a collective exhibition “Bilbao – Bregenz” at the Kunsthaus Bregenz, an exhibition commemorating the work of the 40 artists who have participated in exchanges between the Kunsthaus Bregenz and BilbaoArte over the last 10 years (2006-2016).