JOAQUÍN CLERCH

Germany

concert
master classes

SATURDAY, 5^TH OF JUNE

KOLARAC ENDOWMENT (MAIN HALL)

20:00 JOAQUÍN CLERCH & RTS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

"Recuerdos de Belgrado" - concert for classical guitar and symphony orchestra

Soloists: MARCO TAMAYO, RAFAEL AGUIRRE, JOAQUÍN CLERCH & DAVID MARTINEZ

Conductor: BOJAN SUĐIĆ

Joaquín Clerch

The Cuban guitar player was born on August 8, 1965 in Havana, where years later he was awarded one of the most prestigious art awards granted by the Cuban government, “Orden por la Cultura Nacional.” He studied guitar, music and composition in his homeland and in 1989 completed his studies in the Instituto Superior de Arte. In 1990 Joaquín Clerch continued studying overseas, at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, Austria, where he was Eliot Fisk’s guitar student and where he studied early music with Anthony Spiri and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. In 1991 Clerch finished his studies in Salzburg with honors and received an award for outstanding artistic achievement granted by the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research. Also in 1991, he began his international teaching career, first as assistant to Professor Fisk at the Mozarteum and later teaching at the Munich Conservatory. Since 1999 he has been teaching guitar classes at the Robert Schumann Conservatory in Dusseldorf.

''Joaquin Clerch is probably one of the world’s, if not, the leading guitar players of his generation.'' (Eliot Fisk)

Memories from Belgrade

I got to know Belgrade in 1985. When I left this beautiful city, I felt deep sadness that you have in your youth when leaving something you loved. It was one more lesson that helps you understand that not everything you love accompanies you in life.

During my visit to Belgrade in 2018 I met Mrs. Aleksandra Mitrovic, who took me to the concert hall where in 1985 the guitar competition was organised, in which I also participated. While I was in that place, I realised that the emotions had never abandoned me.

Thanks to Aleksandra, I also got in touch with maestro Bojan Suđić, who, together with the director of Guitar Art Festival Boško Radojković, took a chance on my work and that is how we finalised the project of writing this piece. I also have to mention that an inevitable part of my memories is one of my dearest maestros-Costas Cotsiolis, for whom this piece originally should have been written.

That is how the idea of recreating Balkan themes, for which I have great admiration, emerges. As a curios fact, the name Matanzas is inluded in the name of the second movement. The reason is that this Cuban city in its past was called the Athens of Cuba. Costas recommended that I use the theme of Đurđevdan in the second movement, telling me that this would be more beautiful than Aranjuez (something impossible). That is why the first three notes played by the clarinet in the second movement represent a quote from the famous concerto. In the end, I used four Balkan themes which I entwine with my world of sound. There would be many things I could talk about, but I prefer them to be found through music.

Fantasy in the Gardens of Falla

As the name implies, it is a tribute to maestro Falla, and taking advantage of the circumstance that the guitar maker Paco Marin is from the same city, I wrote the first movement for his 70th birthday. I have recently finished the second movement, which is based on the poem of the maestro Federico García Lorca La Guitarra. This multiple tribute is a journey through the Impressionist and Andalusian world. I was lucky to have Carlos Fariñas as a maestro of composition, maestro Leo Brouwer and indirectly the maestros Falla, Brahms and many others, who shared with me and showed me the ways of music. They are all in my pieces.

I do not wish to end without thanking the maestros Marco Tamayo, David Martínez and Rafael Aguirre for helping me and accompanying me at this concert.

Infinitely grateful,

Joaquín