Barcelona Symphony Orchestra

The Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and National Orchestra of Catalonia was founded in 1944. Since 1999, their home base has been the modern concert hall L’Auditori in Barcelona. With this guest performance, the orchestra makes their long-awaited debut at Konserthuset Stockholm, led by their French chief conductor Ludovic Morlot.

This programme is characterised by French and Spanish elements, and in the case of Maurice Ravel – both: he was deeply interested in Spanish culture, and his mother had Basque origins and grew up in Madrid. We hear three works by Ravel, including Shéhérazade for soprano and orchestra, with Singaporean-British Fleur Barron singing the solo part. “Charismatic star” and “knockout performer” are quotes from the American and British press that pique curiosity. We also hear her in music by Xavier Montsalvatge – a trendsetting twentieth-century composer who lived in Barcelona. The song cycle Canciones Negras unites Catalan folklore and West Indian elements.

The concert begins with music by Raquel García-Tomás, born in 1984 in Barcelona. She composes modern interdisciplinary works, with elements of electronics and other artforms. Some of her pieces engage in dialogue with older masters. This brand new work reflects her admiration for the aesthetics of French music, such as Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé which concludes this concert.