The Tenerife Symphony Orchestra will be in charge of inaugurating tomorrow, Friday the 10th, in Lanzarote, and the following day in Fuerteventura, a new edition of the Canary Islands International Music Festival, which also starts that same day in Gran Canaria with the Philharmonia Orchestra and María Dueñas.
The Tenerife formation, under the direction of the Swedish clarinetist Martin Froest, who will also perform as a soloist, will be responsible for interpreting the work commissioned by the festival to the Canarian composer Manuel Bonino, entitled 'Toco tu boca…', in addition to a program dedicated to Mozart.
The concerts will be on Friday, January 10, at 8:00 p.m., at the Los Jameos del Agua Auditorium, in Lanzarote, whose tickets are already sold out, and on Saturday, January 11, at 8:30 p.m., at the Palacio de Formación y Congresos, in Fuerteventura, with tickets still available on the Ecoentradas portal and on the website of the 41st Canary Islands Music Festival.
Migdalia Machín, Minister of Culture of the Government of the Canary Islands, has expressed "her satisfaction with the interest that this edition of the festival is generating, with tickets already sold out in several of its first concerts, as well as the good reception that the creation of season tickets has had for the first time in the less populated islands."
About the premiere Canarian work
Manuel Bonino uses in Toco tu boca… one of the first words of chapter VII of Rayuela, by Julio Cortázar, a novel that he himself confesses to having as one of his great literary obsessions. In it, he reveals the places and moments in which he enters each time he rereads this classic of literature, but without intending to make an adaptation to the language of music. "I do not intend to emulate or transfer Cortázar's resources to a kind of musical equivalent. Partly, because of the respect that it produces in me even to try, and partly because of the fear of not being able to achieve it," he admits.
Manuel Bonino is, in fact, one of the most relevant Spanish composers on the current scene. He began his musical training in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, his city of birth, and later continued his career in Madrid and Germany, where he forged a catalog of the most diverse in areas such as symphonic chamber music, electroacoustic music or arrangements of popular music.
After a fruitful career on stage and in the academic world, today he holds the title of Professor of Composition at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid and Doctor cum laude from the ULPGC. And, of course, he continues immersed in the development of his own compositions, which enjoy the privilege of having premiered in several of the main international musical capitals.
Martin Froest at the baton (and the clarinet)
From beginning to end, this extraordinary concert by the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra will be conducted by Martin Froest, who currently holds the position of principal conductor at the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. Both on the baton and with his instrument - the clarinet - he is known for constantly seeking new ways to challenge and reshape classical music. Proof of this are the numerous concerts, records and awards he has accumulated after decades of musical career, among which the Léonie Sonning Music Prize stands out, one of the highest musical honors in the world.
After the interpretation of Toco su boca…, which will also be directed by Froest, the Swedish director will perform as a soloist in the Concerto for clarinet in A major, by W.A. Mozart, which will occupy the second part of the concert. This work is considered one of the orchestral peaks of the 18th century, especially for maximizing the expressive possibilities of the instrument.
Divided into three movements, Allegro, Adagio and Rondó, its score allows us to admire the nuances of the clarinet in all its forms - from the melodic to the sublime - and with an emotional intensity that keeps intact the spirit of a work that already worked in 1791 and works today.
The concert closes with the Symphony No. 40 by W. A. Mozart, in which Martin Froest will once again handle the baton in this segment to delight the public of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura with one of the last symphonies of the Austrian prodigy. It is a composition that responds to the classicist structure (fast, slow, minuet and fast), and that many experts describe as urgent in its rhythm and passionate in its form.
Season tickets and the rest of the program
The Tenerife Symphony Orchestra will be the first concerts of a total of seven scheduled in Lanzarote, one in La Graciosa, and another seven in Fuerteventura. It should also be noted that for the first time the possibility of subscribing to the festival has been enabled in these islands, an opportunity that has been especially supported in Lanzarote, where more than seventy spectators have joined it.
Throughout these weeks you can also enjoy in both territories interpreters as prominent as the Vienna Boys Choir, Ensemble Nasmé & Michael Barenboim or Pablo Sainz-Villegas, the latter also in La Graciosa. The program is completed with prestigious Canarian formations such as the Las Palmas Symphony Orchestra, accompanied by the prestigious horn player Sarah Willis, Gran Canaria Wind Orchestra and Troveros de Asieta & Alfredo de la Fe.
