Bizet’s Carmen Suites
Radiant rhythms and vibrant melodies await in this colourful celebración hispana, featuring Jimmy López Bellido’s spirited tribute to his Afro-Peruvian heritage, and Karen Gomyo’s blazing take on Astor Piazzolla’s The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, where classical music meets Argentinian tango. The fiesta culminates in the south of Spain with Bizet’s Carmen Suites, including the crowd-pleasing favourites “Habanera”, “Toreador Song”, and more.
Program
Jimmy López Bellido
Perú Negro
Piazzolla
The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires
Intermission
Liam Ritz (RBC Affiliate Composer)
New Work
Bizet
Suites No. 1 & 2 from Carmen
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Performers
Gustavo Gimeno
Karen Gomyo
Karen Gomyo, “a first-rate artist of real musical command, vitality, brilliance and intensity” (Chicago Tribune), possesses a rare ability to captivate and connect intimately with audiences through her deeply emotional and heartfelt performances. With a flawless command of the instrument and expressive elegance, she is one of today’s leading violinists.
Following a highly successful 2023/24 season—which saw Gomyo début with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, National Symphony Orchestra in Dublin, and KBS Symphony Orchestra in Seoul, in addition to returns to Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, Dallas Symphony, and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra—she continues on tour to Australasia in concerts with the Singapore, Melbourne, Sydney, Tasmanian, and West Australian Symphony Orchestras. Gomyo’s 2024/25 season will bring more highly anticipated débuts with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Turin’s Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai, and the Helsinki, Oslo, and Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestras. Gomyo will also return to the Indianapolis, Baltimore, Colorado, and Kansas City Symphony Orchestras, and in Canada to the Montreal Symphony, NAC Orchestra in Ottawa, and Calgary Philharmonic.
Gomyo is a passionate chamber musician, and has performed with artists such as Olli Mustonen, Leif Ove Andsnes, Enrico Pace, James Ehnes, Noah Bendix-Balgley, Daishin Kashimoto, Emmanuel Pahud, Julian Steckel, Heinrich Schiff, mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, and guitarist Ismo Eskelinen, with whom she recorded Carnival (BIS Records).
A champion of Astor Piazzolla’s nuevo tango music, she regularly collaborates with Piazzolla’s long-time pianist and tango legend, Pablo Ziegler, as well as bandoneon players Héctor del Curto, JP Jofre, and Marcelo Nisinman. In 2021, Gomyo released A Piazzolla Trilogy (BIS Records) with the strings of the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire and guitarist Stephanie Jones.
Renowned for her commitment to commissioning new repertoire, Gomyo gave the US premières of Samy Moussa’s Violin Concerto “Adrano” with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Matthias Pintscher’s Concerto No. 2 “Mar’eh” with Washington, DC’s National Symphony Orchestra, under the composer’s baton, and Xi Wang’s YEAR 2020: Concerto for Violin, Trumpet, and Orchestra with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth, conducted by Fabio Luisi. In 2018, she performed the world première of Samuel Adams’s Chamber Concerto with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen, written for her and commissioned for the 20th anniversary of the CSO’s MusicNOW series.