25 candidates, four phases and a winner.
The 1st “Llíria, City of Music” International Orchestra Conducting Competition closed its deadline for submission with a total of 188 applicants from 35 different nationalities who will compete to become the best orchestra conductor.
Even so, the competition officially begins next Monday 12 July, with 25 finalists who will strive for the three awards of the competition, among which is the highest award: having the opportunity to be invited to conduct in the 10 top-level professional orchestras that collaborate in this initiative by the Llíria City Council.
The competition will be divided into four phases, which is due between Tuesday 13 and Saturday 17 July. The first two phases will take place at the Professional Music Conservatory of Llíria, while the third and final phase will take place at the theatre of the Unión Musical.
In every phase of the competition, the jury will assess the candidates according to the following criteria: expressive gestures, interpretation, sound, dynamics, articulation, pitch and balances.
At the end of each day of the competition, the organization of the competition will publish the result and will inform which participants are on the next phase. On the other hand, the ruling of the final phase will be made known during the Concert of the Bands, in which the Ateneo Musical y de Enseñanza Banda Primitiva and the Banda Sinfónica Unión Musical de Llíria will participate. The concert will take place on Saturday 17 July, from 10:30 p.m. at the Plaza Mayor.
This is the mechanics of the 1st “Llíria, City of Music” International Orchestra Conducting Competition.
First Phase. July 13. Professional Music Conservatory of Llíria
Throughout the day, the 25 contestants will conduct a rehearsal, lasting a maximum of 10 minutes, in which they will have to conduct one or various movements of Stravinski’s Soldier’s Tale; those indicated by the jury before the start of the test.
A maximum of 15 contestants will qualify for the second phase.
Soldier’s Tale (1917) is a multidisciplinary piece in which the composer combines text, music and dance to narrate a Russian folk tale. It is made of an introductory march, six scenes and two intermissions where theatrical scenes and the musical pieces are interspersed.
It was composed within a background of great difficulty, once the First World War finished. Therefore, the chosen formation by the Russian composer is reduced, with only seven performers: clarinet in A, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, violin, double bass and percussion.
It is a work of great technical complexity, with a very varied musical language based both on historically consolidated elements and on other elements of contemporary Western music. it stands out for the use of polyphonies and polymetries and dissonances, thereby breaking with the historical Russian orchestration. And he transfers them to different dances: some of them traditional like the waltz or pasodoble and others contemporary like ragtime or tango.
Second phase. July 14. Professional Music Conservatory of Llíria
The qualified candidates for this phase will be assessed during a rehearsal, which will last fifteen minutes in the afternoon. As in the previous phase, the movement or movements to be worked on will be indicated by the jury right before the start.
The jury may promote up to a maximum of 6 directors for the third phase.
Serenade for Strings in C Major, Op. 48 by Tchaikovsky (1888) is the repertoire piece for this second phase. It is one of the masterpieces – as he recognized in life – of the Russian composer, who composed “from the heart”.
The composition is structured in four movements: Pezzo in forma di sonatina, Valse, Élegie and Finale.
The composer challenged the classical models in terms of tonal progressions, with a predominance of the dominant (G M) in the second movement and the dominant of the dominant (D M) in the third; reason that makes core movements so powerful.
Third phase. July 15. Theatre of Unión Musical de Llíria
In this phase, up to a maximum of 6 contestants will participate. The jury will assess them during a rehearsal lasting a maximum of 25 minutes. Once again, the jury will indicate the movement or movements to be conducted by the applicant before the start of the test.
The repertoire of this phase will be Symphony No. 29 in A Major, Kv. 201 by Mozart (1774). It is one of the best-known symphonies from the composer’s first stage, written for a string orchestra, two oboes and two trumpets.
It consists of four movements: Allegro Moderato, sonata form; Andante, also with sonata form; Menuetto and Allegro con spirito, with sonata form but in 6/8.
Final phase. July 16 and 17. Theatre of Unión Musical de Llíria
The last phase – the final – will be divided into two sessions. On Friday 16 July, the three finalists will conduct a 45-minute rehearsal, with the repertoire established by the jury.
On the other hand, on Saturday 17 July, the three contestants will conduct the closing concert of the competition, with the pieces rehearsed the day before. Among the works chosen is the premiere of Cantos by Francisco Coll for string orchestra.
In addition, the repertoire is completed with In quali eccessi or Numi de tradì quell’alma ingrata, recitative and aria by Donna Elvira from Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni; and Coriolan Overture, Op. 62 by Beethoven.
Cantos is a premiere composition by the Valencian composer Francisco Coll. It is a short string orchestral movement, which functions as a version of the composer’s Hyperlude V for solo violin.
The work has a spiritual and introspective character. Structured in a single movement, it is a series of consecutive cadences that – as the title suggests – emulate the inflections of the human voice.
Don Giovanni (1787) is one of the most performed operas in the world and is part of the most popular triad of the Austrian composer, along with The Magic Flute and The Marriage of Figaro.
The two chosen pieces present two juxtaposed interpretations. On the one hand, the recitative with a lot of drama and emphatic rhythms. On the other hand, the aria: expressive, in ternary form and structured like a rondó.
Coriolan (1807) is an overture based on the homonymous play by William Shakespeare, inspired by the Roman leader Gaius Marcio Coriolanus. The composition has a heterodox sonata form, representing the character of the Roman soldier through music, with an impulsive introduction and a presentation of the theme with abrupt chords. It stands out for the use of silences, either to create tension, change the environment or as a pause to tonally modulate when the audience has already forgotten the previous one.
