Joaquín Achúcarro

diciembre 6th, 2012 · No hay Comentarios

My web communication plan is focused on Joaquin Achucarro, a basque pianist. I decide to speak about him and one of the concerts that he will give the next week at the Philharmonic Society of Bilbao because my hobby is the piano and I will go to Joaquin’s concert the next Tuesday.

“I have only heard this sound from Rubinstein” — Zubin Mehta

“There is something special with Achucarro. Very few musicians can extract this kind of sound from the piano” — Sir Simon Rattle

Joaquín Achúcarro

Paris:
“Volupté sonore” “Magnifique!”
London:
“It was a delight to hear piano sonority for once with such a warm and clear and intimate bloom”
Berlin:
“Achúcarro used his fine strength and technical sovereignty to achieve perfect unity with the orchestra”
Budapest:
“The purity of his sound […] Strength, modesty and responsibility of a great artist”
Madrid:
“Joaquín Achúcarro: One of the Greats”
Venezia:
“Achúcarro’s superb performance closes in Beauty the concert series at La Fenice”
Dublin:
“He drew from the piano all the singing quality of the instrument”
Roma:
“With a dazzling technique and an exquisite poetical sensitivity Achúcarro mesmerized the public”
Chicago:
“Achúcarro is the consummate artist”
Toronto:
“Pianist Achúcarro plays pure magic”

Achúcarro was born in Bilbao, in the difficult years of the Spanish post war- period. He began piano lessons at the Bilbao Conservatory and, in 1956, at the age of 13, made his concerto debut in Bilbao playing a Mozart concerto with a local orchestra. As a teenager he moved to Madrid to study a degree in physics, although soon after his graduation he devoted himself totally to the study of music and moved to Siena, Italy to study at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana In 1959 he won the 4th prize of the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition. The same year his career was launched after his victory at the Liverpool International Competition, which led to his debut with the London Symphony Orchestra.

He has since worked in 58 countries, with 206 orchestras including some of the finest ensembles, such as Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony, Philharmonia, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, etc. and with 354 conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Zubin Mehta, Yehudi Menuhin,Seiji Ozawa and Sir Simon Rattle.

As a conductor-soloist he has worked with orchestras in Great Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain.

Since the mid-1980s, he has been a professor at the Meadows School of the Arts of the Southern Methodist University in Texas, United States.

Achúcarro has recorded over 30 CDs with different labels.

In his home country, Spain, he has achieved the two highest honors in the Arts: in 1992 the Spanish Government awarded him the Premio Nacional de Música, and in 1996 he was knighted by King Juan Carlos with the Gold Medal of Fine Arts. He is also Comendador of the Order of Isabel la Católica and Member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. In 1997 he was awarded the Premio Larios for Musical Excellence, and he played at the inauguration of the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum in front of an audience of 25,000 and broadcast live in over 100 countries.

“The piano is a percussion instrument. Some extraordinary pianists, and Joaquin is one of them, can make it appear that the piano goes legato and that the notes grow into each other… there is a very particular sound that he can make that now very, very few pianists can make. It’s a very rare thing and it’s instantly recognizable”
– Sir Simon Rattle, in Opus Arte’s DVD

The French School of Bilbao held a concert tribute to Joaquín Achúcarro on 11th December, at 19.30, at the Philharmonic Society of Bilbao. The organizers have been holding various events to mark its 80th anniversary and this time the musician taxed international recognition, on the occasion of his 80th birthday.

The concert will feature pianist honored, just arrived yesterday in Dallas.

Danel Angeline French soprano, tenor with Gorka Robles, French operas sung duets from Bizet and Gounod, accompanied by pianist Rubén Fernández Aguirre, Ainhoa Arteta regular passenger or Maria Bayo. And the Lyceum Choir, plus the songs scheduled to sing a greeting Achúcarro.

World-class pianist has performed with more than 200 orchestras, including the London Symphony, the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de France, among others, and important directors as Claudio Abbado, Zubin Mehta, Simon Rattle, .. And has major awards and honors as National Music Award, Gold Medal of Fine Arts, Son of the Villa de Bilbao, mainly.

Here is an interview with Joaquín Achúcarro: