INTERVIEW WITH JUAN PAULO GÓMEZ, MUSICAL AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF IBERIAN SINFONIETTA

Juan Paulo Gomez © Juanjo Photographer

Iberian Sinfonietta is a philanthropic orchestral project founded in 2019 on the Costa del Sol with an educational and cultural objective towards the community.

This year they are developing their second season of concerts, Community Concerts, in Fuengirola, providing enormous support to young musicians.

 


Iberian Sinfonietta
 It is a philanthropic orchestral project that began its journey in 2019. What objectives do you pursue with this group? Who is part of the orchestra?

The main objective of our project is to continue providing programming based, fundamentally, on classical music to the community where we have our concert season located. With the name of Community Concerts , the season includes five concerts on a bimonthly basis between the months of September and May, being free to the public.

In relation to the orchestra's staff, it is made up of professional musicians who work regularly in each of the programs. In addition, we have a fundamental figure for the development of the format that we put into practice in each of our concerts: the pedagogical content coordinator.

This function has been developed from the beginning by Jorge Rodríguez Morata , who interacts with the public by sending them information about the concert repertoire, about the guest soloists (with whom he conducts brief interviews before their performance), with the musical and artistic director to find out the reasons that have led them to to program the repertoire, etc.; This is how the orchestra's blog feeds with content during the weeks leading up to the concert.

' The Peace Palace is an auditorium with great resources and capacity, making it an ideal venue for the musical proposal that we want to bring to the public . ' Juan Paulo Gomez

Currently your concert venue is located in the Peace Palace in Fuengirola (Málaga), how did this collaboration come about?

It was all very fast. When I presented the project to the Culture Councilor of the Fuengirola City Council, Rodrigo Romero Morales , perfectly understood the intention and service purpose of our initiative, putting at our disposal the facilities, personnel and communication resources necessary for its development.

Since then, we have worked together with Lydia Merino Rivera , director of the House of Culture, who is in charge of coordinating all the cultural programming of the municipality.
He Peace Palace It is an auditorium with great resources and capacity, making it an ideal venue for the musical proposal that we want to present to the public.

'The wonderful disposition of the Fuengirola City Council has been fundamental and decisive in moving forward' . Juan Paulo Gomez

How has Iberian Sinfonietta adapted to the new reality derived from the global pandemic? How have you managed to continue your activity in such difficult times?

Firstly, we had to understand the extraordinary situation in which we were immersed, which would modify the traditional concept we had of the presence and attendance of the public at our concerts. However, what we were clear about was that we could not stop the work we were doing in favor of culture.

It is true that the situation resulting from confinements and perimeter closures has made it very difficult to reach all the audiences we would have liked, but the fact of having canceled our concerts would have made our situation even worse.

Therefore, we were clear that it was preferable to continue carrying out the planned program even if the number of attendees was very small. Of course, we would have to make an effort to be able to deliver the content through our website and social networks to all those who could not have been present.

Luckily, the great disposition of the Fuengirola City Council has been fundamental and decisive in moving forward, since at all times they have supported us and made things easier, such as changing the schedule of the concerts or promoting access control measures and hygiene measures that are making '0' infections possible.

Juan Paulo Gomez © Juanjo Photographer

The fourth concert of its Community Concerts 2020-21 season will take place on March 13. For him, they will have the accordionist Marta Cubas Hondal, winner of the Intercentros Melómano 2016, what work are you going to perform with Marta?

In this concert we are going to be lucky enough to be able to collaborate with a performer of the highest artistic level. The audience will be surprised by this considering their youth. Honestly, I think the experience is going to be great, as well as the musical result.

We will interpret the Indalic Concert for accordion and orchestra in the version that the composer Alejandro Vivas Puig has been performed expressly for this occasion, since the formation of this concert will be a string orchestra. I want to thank the composer for the effort made in adapting a work that was designed for a larger group, therefore facilitating its interpretation in this concert.

Furthermore, in the program we also find an absolute premiere, Concerto for two trumpets in D minor by the young composer Víctor Martínez Jara, how would you describe this work? Who will be the soloists?

This concert was conceived in 2013 as a project to practice the genre concerto grosso while the composer studied composition at the Professional Conservatory of Music in Astorga, his hometown.

The concert is inspired by Vivaldi's concertos, with some personal touches and romantic and neoclassical influences, although adhering at all times to the established rules, given that, after all, the purpose of the work was initially academic. At all times he tried to ensure that both soloists had generally similar importance, creating a 'one-to-one' conversation between both parties.

The performers in this absolute premiere will be Alejandro Gómez Hurtado , trumpeter of the Jaén Municipal Band, member of The Five Bells quintet, IBERBRASS endorser and FIDES artist; and David Guillén Monje , Professor of Trumpet at the Superior Conservatory of Music of Málaga and artist of the prestigious Dutch trumpet brand ADAMS.

Juan Paulo Gomez © Juanjo Photographer

The event will be completed with the Four Seasons of Buenos Aires by Astor Piazzolla. What can Iberian Sinfonietta contribute to such a well-known work?

The title of this concert is 'From another prism'. With this, we wanted to program works that, within a modern language and conception, have been based on structures typical of previous times.

Specifically, the adaptation that the Russian composer Leonid Desyatnikov made between 1996 and 1998 of these pieces, conceived and treated as different compositions instead of a suite by Piazzolla, tries to reflect a more than evident link between Vivaldi and the Argentine composer.

Likewise, in relation to the previous work: the Indálico Concerto , the small nods towards Piazzolla are constant throughout the work, this being a reference musician in the style of Alejandro Vivas Puig. For this reason, we think that it could perfectly culminate a program that began, precisely, reflecting the spirit of the Baroque in the work of Víctor Martínez Jara. On this occasion, the violin soloist will be Enrique Tudela de Miguel , a high-level violinist who also serves as concertmaster of our orchestra and who will not leave the audience indifferent.

What are the orchestra's next commitments for this season?

We will end the season in the month of May, specifically on the 8th, with a concert titled 'Humor in Classical Music ' , whose purpose is to present to the public a series of works in which their composers have tried to musically caricature scores of great popularity for listeners, as well as the customs and folklore of certain Central European areas. I think it will be a very enjoyable concert that will establish a perfect symbiosis between humor and the great musical quality of the works on the program.

' The next season, which will be presented in the month of September, will continue to show our support for young talents on the national music scene.' Juan Paulo Gomez

Can you tell us some programming lines for the next 2021-22 season?

The next season, which will be presented in the month of September, will continue to show our support for young talents on the national music scene. In the programming we will have the presence of Amalia Escobar García , very young trumpet player, winner of the Iberian Sinfonietta Award in it II Young Performers Contest 'Ciudad de Estepona' ; with Roberto Rúmenov Iliev , pianist and recent winner of the 19th Intercentros Melómano – Interpretation Award for Soloists in the Higher Degree category, as well as how we will perform the premiere of a work by the young composer from Malaga Alejandro de la Torre Hernández , winner of the 2020 edition of the Malaga Musical Foundation Award for the best academic record of the Málaga Higher Conservatory of Music . In addition, we will have as guest soloists performers of the caliber of Carmen María Elena González (cello), Pedro Girba Vidal (flute), Juan Ramón Hernández Leiva (harp) and, again, Alejandro Gomez Hurtado (trumpet).

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