Sep 2023
An excellent season’s end and Summer 2023
Following an intense start to the year that saw her return to great Spanish halls and make her debut in Mexico, Judith continued her 2022/23 season with different repertoires both in Spain as well as Ireland and France.
Highlights included a great success at the International Music Festival of Granada together with the Mandelring Quartett and her return with a much-celebrated recital to the Teatro Victoria Eugenia of San Sebastián. Likewise, the final part of the season saw her make her debut in Ireland, return to play in Southern France and enjoy playing once more in unique natural beauty spots.
Schubert has been an important focus of these last few months of the season and the subject of a monographic recital dedicated to the much-celebrated composer at the Teatro Victoria Eugenia in San Sebastián. The review of the concert subsequently summarized the concert in the following way: “ 67 minutes - all in one go – and four heartfelt and unanimously applauded curtain calls, would be the summary of the magnificent concert offered by the pianist Judith Jáuregui in her beloved Victoria Eugenia.” In terms of her interpretation it highlighted that “her hands shone light on the keys, presenting us the Drei Klavierstücke, D. 760, showing us the elegant power of her permanent dedication. The playful haven arrived with the two Scherzos, D.593… a true delight. And the stellar moment of the concert, the one in which Jáuregui elevated her already refined technique and elegance, was with her interpretation of the Wanderer Fantasie. Hard to forget this moment of technical accuracy and melodic depth.”
Another theme has been Shostakovich, with which she triumphed together with the Mandelring Quartett on the unique stage of the Patio de los Arrayanes at the Alhambra in Granada, within the prestigious International Music Festival of Granada. Reviews the following day described it as “one of the most interesting chamber music recitals of the Festival this year,” highlighting also Judith’s solo performance which opened the concert: “in first instance, the very elegant pianist Judith Jáuregui played the Aphorisms which, like its literary equivalent, were sentencing – in a musical sense – and quickly put the audience in situation. Jáuregui is a great specialist of the work of the Russian composer… a very good sound was what emerged from this bouquet of ten short pieces, that Jáuregui interpreted with mastery”
Likewise, she has played works by Schumman, Schubert and Liszt at different festivals including those of Saint Pée sur Nivelle (France), the Festival Música en Segura and the Festival d’Estiu de Menorca, where reviews praised her “clear and powerful sound and a perfect balance between the articulation and the romantic expression, an imaginative phrasing and an impeccable technical solidity.” This precisely was the concert where she returned to play with the Gerhard Quartett the Quintets by Granados and Dvorak, in an alliance that “shone by its connection, an excellent unity of gestures and a fantastic equilibrium between individual expression and collective force. We came away with the impression of having discovered the personality of each of the musicians whom, together, became an exquisite group” stated the subsequent reviews.
To close this summary of recent months, it is worth highlighting that Judith was also joined again in duo by the cellist Nadège Rochat for a concert driven by the mutual inspiration of music and poetry at the Blackwater Opera Valley Festival in Ireland, as well as by violinist Soyoung Yoon with whom – together with the cellist Nadège Rochat - they played once more the trio programme they presented at the beginning of 2023 at the Auditorio Nacional of Madrid, this time at the Quincena Musical de San Sebastián in a much awaited concert that was sold out weeks beforehand.
An excellent end to the season and a Summer of great activity that brought to a close a successful and very positive 22/23 season for Judith Jáuregui.