For the final, the members of the jury are expanded with another three members and the voice of the managers and conductors of the collaborating orchestras
An essential part of the 1st “Llíria, city of music” International Orchestra Conducting Competition is the jury, which will be in charge of choosing the winners and candidates who pass each of the four phases of the competition.
The fixed jury seating of the competition is chaired by Manuel Galduf, the renowned conductor from Edeta; who will share the selection board with British John Carewe, the Venezuelan Carlos Riazuelo and the Spaniards Francisco Coll, Virginia Martínez, and Cristóbal Soler; who will act as secretary of the jury with voice but without vote.
For the final, which will be held on Friday 16 and Saturday 17 July, three other members will join them: Jacques Mercier, Andrés Salado and José María Moreno. The managers and artistic directors or owners of the collaborating orchestras will also be part of the jury of the final – with voice, but without vote –.
The jury, established by the Department of Culture and the artistic director of the 1st “Llíria City of Music” International Orchestra Conducting Competition, wanted to form a selection board made of top-level professionals with international projection and of European and American profiles.
Fixed jury seating of the competition
Manuel Galduf, President of the jury (Llíria, 1940). He is the most prestigious and long-standing conductor from Edeta of the entire 20th century. After completing his studies in the Banda Primitiva, he specialized in conducting, composition, violin, piano and oboe at the Conservatorio de València.
He was the chief conductor of the Orquesta de València, between 1983 and 1997. And he has conducted some of the most prestigious orchestras in the world such as the RTVE Orchestra, the French National Orchestra or the Montecarlo Opera.
He is an academic at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos. And he was a professor of conducting at the Joaquín Rodrigo de València Superior Conservatory. He has also been musical director of the Youth Orchestra of the Generalitat Valenciana since 1999.
John Carewe. Spokesperson. Trained in London and Paris, he has been a student of renowned batons such as Walter Goehr, Max Deutsch, Messian and Boulez; until ending up being composer, conductor and conducting professor at the Royal Academy of Music.
During the 1950s and 1960s, he performed numerous premieres with the New Music Ensemble in London and major UK festivals; until he became the chief conductor of the BBC Welsh Orchestra in Cardiff in 1966.
In subsequent decades, he made a tour of annual visits to Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Brazil; as well as concerts with the main European radio symphony orchestras such as Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt and Hamburg.
In addition, he has an extensive discography among which highlights a CD containing Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale, which is one of the pieces of the competition.
Carlos Riazuelo. Spokesperson. The Venezuelan-Spanish conductor studied Orchestral Conducting with Franco Ferrera (Italy) and George Hurst (England); although he completes his advanced studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, receiving the award from the Ricordi publishing house.
At the end of his training, he was appointed artistic director of the Caracas Municipal Symphony Orchestra and is invited to conduct most of the country’s orchestras.
In Spain, he has conducted zarzuela at the Teatro de “La Zarzuela” and at the Madrid Opera and symphonic concerts in Córdoba, Galicia, the Principality of Asturias, Valencia, Elche and the Balearic Islands, among others.
Currently, he is a conductor and professor of conducting at the universities of the states of Florida and Lusiana in the United States.
Virginia Martínez. Spokesperson. After graduating from the Higher Conservatory of Music, she studied Orchestral Conducting in Vienna with Reinhard Schwarz and Georg Mark.
She begins her projection with the title of “Young Person of the Year” 2004 from the Youth Council of the Region of Murcia and is appointed assistant at the Gran Teatro del Liceo and at the Symphony Orchestra of Barcelona and the National Orchestra of Catalonia.
She has conducted numerous orchestras among which are the National Orchestra of Spain, the National Orchestra of Singapore, the Orchestra of Valencia or the Philharmonic Orchestra of Gran Canaria.
In 2019 she is elected one of the “Women of the Year” by the Vocento Group and she receives the distinction of “Murcian Woman of the Year 2018”.
Since 2012, she is the artistic director and chief conductor of the Symphony Orchestra and the Youth Orchestra of the Region of Murcia.
Francisco Coll. Spokesperson (Valencia, 1985). He is the International Classical Music Award 2019 and is undoubtedly one of the Valencian composers with the greatest international outreach.
His music has been performed and commissioned by the most important orchestras on the world scene such as the LA Philharmonic, Ensemble InterContemporain, the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra or the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.
In 2014, he achieved great success with the premiere of his chamber opera Café Kafka at the Royal Opera House in Convent Garden.
He made his conducting debut in 2019 with a Double Concerto, conducting the Camerata Bern with soloists Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Sol Gabetta.
Cristóbal Soler. Secretary with voice but without vote. Heis considered one of the most important conductors of his generation, the fruit of a solid and rigorous training in Vienna with conductors such as Nikolas Harnoncourt, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Mariss Janson.
For six seasons, he has been the chief conductor at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid. In addition, he was artistic director and founder of the Philharmonic Orchestra of the University of Valencia, between 1995 and 2010.
Throughout his career, he has worked on the recovery of lyrical heritage and has carried out important pedagogical work. And, of course, he has conducted some of the most prestigious orchestras, including the RTVE Orchestra and Choir, the OBC Nacional de Cataluña, the Orquesta de València and the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, among others.
The three members, with vote, that join the board for the final
Jacques Mercier. He studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, where he unanimously won the First Prize for Conducting. He was then awarded the First Prize of the Besançon International Young Directors Competition.
Quickly, he began a career in which he conducted prestigious groups: the Paris Orchestra, the French National Radio Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra.
For seven years, he has served as Resident Conductor of the Ruku Philharmonic in Finland. In 2002 he received the distinction “Musical Personality of 2002” awarded by
Andrés Salado is currently the chief conductor and artistic director of the Extremadura Orchestra. He even so he studied orchestral conducting, after completing his studies as a performer at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid; with professors such as Miguel Romea, Peter Rundell, Jorma Panula, Sandro Gorli, Peter Gülke, Peter Eötvös or Antoni Ros Marbà.
Throughout his career, he has taken the baton of the main Spanish orchestras: ONE; Symphonic Orchestra of RTVE, the Symphonic Orchestra of Barcelona and the National Orchestra of Catalonia; and the symphony orchestras of Madrid, Bilbao, Navarra, Extremadura, Valencia or the Balearic Islands.
In 2016, he won the Princess Girona Foundation Award for Arts and Letters.
José María Moreno is considered one of the most passionate, energetic and versatile Spanish directors. One of the reasons is the fact that he is one of the pioneers of Huno Yuan Taichi Chuan techniques applied to orchestral conducting, under the teachings of maestro Pedro Valencia.
In addition, he has conducted orchestras such as the Berlin, Brandenburg Symphony, the National Symphony of Colombia or the Madrid, Galicia, Valencia and Barcelona Symphony.
Currently, he is the chief conductor of the Malaga Philharmonic, conductor of the Quintana Roo Symphony (Mexico) and main guest of the Opera no Patrimonio Orchestra (Portugal).
