Sánchez-Verdú premieres his symphonic poem “Hacia la luz” at the Auditorio Nacional.

The Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España and the Coros de la Comunidad de Madrid, de RTVE and de Cámara Pamplona will premiere this evening at 19:30 in the Auditorio Nacional the symphonic poem Hacia la luz (… ἐς φάος …), by the Spanish composer and conductor José María Sánchez-Verdú (Algeciras, 1968). This is an ambitious work, with the orchestra conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya and the choirs by Miguel Ángel García Cañamero, based on the Poem of Parmenides, which also features a Japanese noh singer (Ryoko Aoki). Commissioned by the OCNE, it was composed before the confinement, but its premiere was postponed for well-known reasons.

The composer has published a text in the cultural magazine La lectura in which he explains that Parmenides, in his Poem, “tells us of a journey whose protagonist is himself”, and in it he describes “his journey in a chariot drawn by mares, accompanied by the Daughters of the Sun, to the other side, to the underworld, to Hades…”. It is, therefore, a work that confronts us with “great images and special acoustic worlds […]. The great orchestra in my work sounds like thousands of flutes that whistle and accelerate as the chariot of the Sun moves forward. And the Daughters of the Sun also sing and guide Parmenides”.

This vast composition,” he adds, “is a resonant world of images and sounds. A journey that we seem to make with the orchestra, the choirs and the encounter with the Goddess herself, embodied in the voice of the Japanese singer of the Noh theatre Ryoko Aoki”. To conclude, Sánchez-Verdú affirms that “the voice of Parmenides, in his language, resounds from the throats of a large number of low male voices. The Daughters of the Sun are a small choir of seven women”.

The concert programme is completed with Belshazzar’s Feast, a 1931 cantata composed by William Walton (1902-1983), with which the British composer gained international recognition. The programme will be repeated tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday.

© Photograph downloaded from the website of José María Sánchez-Verdú.