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Over to Madrid this week for a concert featuring Orquesta Nacional de España, led by guest conductor Kazushi Ono and featuring Enrique Abargues, oboe soloist in the premier recording of the Concerto for bassoon and Orchestra by Marisa Manchado. The concert begins with a performance of the Pellèas et Mèlisande Suite and concludes with Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony. It was broadcast live and recorded on April 27, 2012.
Marisa Manchado is a Spanish classical music composer and teacher. She has been deputy general director of Music and Dance of the National Institute of Performing Arts and Music (INAEM).
After her studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music of Madrid, under Carmelo Bernaola, she trained with Antón García Abril, Luis de Pablo, Brian Ferneyhough and Olivier Messiaen.
Among her works are three operas: The Crystal of Cold Water, with a libretto by Rosa Montero. Scenes of Everyday Life, premiered at the Madrid Autumn Festival, and La Regenta (based on the novel of the same name by Clarín, with a libretto by Amelia Valcárcel
Her Concerto for bassoon and orchestra “Notes for Peace”, was composed on behalf of the National Orchestra of Spain and with Enrique Abargues as soloist. This is the premier performance.
Kazushi Ōno is currently music director of the Brussels Philharmonic and of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, and artistic director of New National Theatre Tokyo.
In Europe, Kazushi Ōno was Chief Conductor of the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra from 1990 to 1996. He was General Music Director of the Baden State Opera, Karlsruhe from 1996 to 2002. In August 2002, he became music director of La Monnaie (Brussels), after his debut there in March 2001, conducting Salvatore Sciarrino’s chamber opera Luci mie traditrici. Other contemporary operas that Ōno conducted with La Monnaie included Philippe Boesmans’ Julie and Wintermärchen, and the world premiere of Toshio Hosokawa’s Hanjo at the Aix-en-Provence Festival (2004). Ōno stepped down as music director at La Monnaie at the end of the 2007–2008 season. Ōno became principal conductor of the Opéra National de Lyon at the start of the 2008–2009 season, with an initial contract of 5 years. He concluded his tenure at Opéra National de Lyon at the close of the 2016–2017 season.
In January 2014, the Barcelona Symphony and Catalonia National Orchestra (OBC) announced the appointment of Ōno as its next music director, effective September 2015, with an initial contract of 3 years, which has since been extended until the end of the 2021–2022 season. Ōno concluded his OBC tenure at the close of the 2021–2022 season.
Ōno was appointed artistic director of the New National Theatre Tokyo (NNTT) from the 2018 season. His contract has since been extended until the 2025–2026 season. His first productions included the world premiere of Asters in 2019, commissioned from Japanese composer Akira Nishimura, which was nominated for a 2020 International Opera Award. Subsequent NNTT world premieres include Dai Fujikura’ A Dream of Armageddon (2020) and Keiichiro Shibuya’s Android opera Super Angels (2021).
Other new works Ōno has commissioned include Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Hibiki, which premiered at Suntory Hall in November 2016 before featuring at the 2017 BBC Proms and which won the 2018 Royal Philharmonic Society award for Large-Scale Composition.
In 2021, Ōno first guest-conducted the Brussels Philharmonic. In September 2021, the Brussels Philharmonic announced the appointment of Ōno as its next music director, effective with the 2022–2023 season.
Enjoy the concert.
