In Tuesday’s (11/5) Wall Street Journal, Barbara Jepson writes about Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado, principal conductor of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and recently named Musical America’s Conductor of the Year. “The 35-year-old Spaniard makes his Metropolitan Opera debut with Verdi’s ‘Rigoletto’ on Monday; tours with Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Paris-based new-music group, in January…. Symphonic debuts this season include the London Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra.… Mr. Heras-Casado is also part of a flowering of younger talent from Spanish-speaking countries. They include Venezuelan Gustavo Dudamel (32), music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez (40); Spanish clarinetist José Franch-Ballester (33); Venezuelan bass player Edicson Ruiz (28), a member of the Berlin Philharmonic; and Colombian conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada (36), music-director designate of the Houston Symphony Orchestra…. A fit and stylish figure on the podium, Mr. Heras-Casado conducts without a baton or distracting theatrics. Throughout [his recent St. Luke’s concert at Carnegie Hall], he showed a fine ear for balances in the strings and woodwinds.… On this program at least, the conductor showed himself to be more of a classicist than a hot-blooded romantic—and that may be the unifying theme in all that he does.”
Posted November 7, 2013
Photo of Pablo Heras-Casado by Gabe Palacio
