Sep 2018
Soria, Oviedo, Málaga and Vienna, first stops for Judith Jáuregui’s new season
On September 22nd Judith Jáuregui will participate in the 26th Edition of the Autumn Musical Festival of Soria, where she will play works by Beethoven, Ligeti and Greco in a concert that is part of the Beethoven Actual Cycle, programmed by the Festival in collaboration with Spain’s National Centre for Musical Diffusion (CNDM). The cycle sees nine pianists play the complete Beethoven Sonatas and the Studies by Ligeti, as well as additional works commissioned by the CNDM to contemporary composers. In Judith’s case, the additional piece chosen for the occasion is “Study in Stride”, composed by José Luis Greco. According to Jáuregui, "Greco is one of the current composers I particularly like. With New York roots but living in Spain, he comes from jazz and rock and has that mix of sensuality, something spiritual and a lot of rhythm, which I love. Moreover, it’s a pleasure to return to the Festival in Soria (I played there a few years ago) with this fascinating project devoted to Beethoven’s Sonatas -a key element of the repertoire for piano- and to be part of it together with this fantastic group of Spanish pianists”.
Within Spain, Judith’s next engagement will take her to Oviedo, where on November 7th she will play at the Príncipe Felipe Auditorium within the “Luis G. Iberni” Piano Days, one of the most consolidated series in Spain, together with the German ensemble Signum Quartett, “a magnificent quartet with which I will be playing with for the first time”, says Judith. The programme they will be playing includes Dvořák's Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major, “a quintet I adore, one of the really great ones, up there with those by Schumann and Brahms”.
Judith will play the last of her 2018 concerts in Spain on December 13th, when she travels to Malaga’s Philharmonic Society, which this year is celebrating its 150th anniversary. “I am delighted to return to Malaga and its Philharmonic Society” she says, “I have a great relationship with them since way back and I feel very close to their seasons. Moreover I return with a tribute to Debussy, closing the year with a composer who is so dear to me and which has been duly remembered by so many throughout 2018.”
But before then Judith will have made her debut in Vienna on October 4th -also playing Debussy, one of her favourite composers- by playing at the “Imperial in Concert” series that the well-known piano manufacturer Bösendorfer holds at the Imperial Hotel. The programme “Pour le tombeau de Claude Debussy” that Judith will be presenting on this stage, and then subsequently in Málaga, will begin with a piece of the same name composed by Manuel de Falla. This will be followed by two of Debussy’s most characteristic works, Estampes and L’Isle joyeuse, before moving on to Ballade No. 2 in B minor by Liszt, in whom -the pianist remarks- “much is foretold of what would happen musically at the beginning of the XX century”. In the second half of the concert, the audience will be treated to the Valses nobles et sentimentales by Ravel “to whom Debussy was close to at different times throughout his life”, and Chopin’s Andante Spianato et Grande Polonaise brillante Op. 22, “one of his great inspirations”.
With her concerts at the Festival D´Estiu of Ciutadella (Menorca) and the Quincena Musical Festival of San Sebastián in August, Judith Jáuregui brought to a close an extraordinary 2017/18 season that saw her make important debuts in leading European capital –on May 17th at the Louvre Auditorium in Paris and on May 30th at the Purcell Room in London’s Southbank Centre- as well as playing across Spain in halls and venues such as the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville, the Góngora Theatre in Córdoba, the Palacio Euskalduna in Bilbao, the Baluarte Theatre in Pamplona or at the ADDA one in Alicante, and on different stages in France, Germany and England. Having finalised her season in Europe, Jáuregui embarked on a tour of China in July that led her to play recital concerts in Beijing, Tianjin, Harbin, Chengdu and Liuzhou.