Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Requiem in D minor (KV 626) for Soloists, Choir and Orchestra

- Bärenreiter Edition (completted by Franz Xaver Süßmayr) -

Mozart's last work, the "Requiem" (KV 626), is still unfinished. The completion of the fragmentary score by his assistant and collaborator at the "Magic Flute", Franz Xaver Süßmayr, has the character of a historical source with great proximity to Mozart's thoughts.

The edition of the Mozart’s Requiem that we will sing in this event will be the Bärenreiter’s edition. You can find it on their website www.baerenreiter.com.

Palau de la Música Catalana

The Palau de la Música Catalana is a concert hall in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Designed in the Catalan modernista style by the architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner, it was built between 1905 and 1908 for the Orfeó Català, a choral society founded in 1891 that was a leading force in the Catalan cultural movement that came to be known as the Renaixença (Catalan Rebirth). It was inaugurated February 9, 1908.

The project was financed primarily by the society, but important financial contributions also were made by Barcelona's wealthy industrialists and bourgeoisie. The Palau won an award from the Barcelona City Council in 1909, given to the best building built during the previous year. Between 1982 and 1989, the building underwent extensive restoration, remodeling, and extension under the direction of architects Oscar Tusquets and Carles Díaz. In 1997, the Palau de la Música Catalana was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site along with Hospital de Sant Pau. Today, more than half a million people a year attend musical performances in the Palau that range from symphonic and chamber music to jazz and Cançó (Catalan song).

Orfeó Català is one of the country’s leading amateur choirs. Founded more than 125 years ago, in 1891, by Lluís Millet and Amadeu Vives, its purpose was to showcase the Catalan and international choral repertoires, and to ensure the excellence of its performances. Throughout its history, the choir has been conducted by Lluís Millet i Pagès (1891-1941), Francesc Pujol i Pons (1941-1945), Lluís Maria Millet i Millet (1945-1977), Lluís Millet i Loras (1977-1981), Simon Johnson (1981-1983 and 1985-1988), Salvador Mas (1983-1985), Jordi Casas Bayer (1988-1998), Josep Vila i Casañas (1998-2015), and Simon Halsey since 2015. Presently, Simon Halsey is the artistic director, Pablo Larraz is the principal conductor, and Pau Casan is the pianist. The choir is based in Barcelona’s Palau de la Música Catalana, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Orfeó Català has performed many of the most significant works within the choral repertoire, including national premieres of such masterpieces as Bach’s Mass in B minor and Haydn’s The Seasons. The choir has sung under the batons of internationally renowned conductors including R. Strauss, C. Saint-Saëns, P. Casals, Z. Mehta, F. Brüggen, M. Rostropovich, Ch. Dutoit, L. Maazel, D. Barenboim, S. Rattle and G. Dudamel, among others. In recent years, the choir has made its debut at the Vienna Konzerthaus and the Gulbenkian Hall in Lisbon, it has toured Italy with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, conducted by D. Gatti, and it has performed in London on three occasions: in 2015 at the Royal Festival Hall, and in 2017 and 2019 at the Royal Albert Hall, for The Proms. In October 2017, Orfeó Català performed the European premiere of Considering Matthew Shepard by Craig Hella Johnson, conducted by Simon Halsey.

One of the choir’s more recent and most important international commitments was a tour of China in October 2018, as a guest of the Shanghai International Arts Festival, performing four concerts in three cities. During the summer of 2019 (June-July), Orfeó Català toured with Gustavo Dudamel and the Münchner Philharmoniker, together with the Palau’s Cor de Cambra, performing Mahler’s Symphony No.2 at the Palau de la Música Catalana, Madrid, Palma, and Munich. In August 2019, the choir also made a second appearance at The Proms in London, together with the Cor Jove de l’Orfeó Català, the London Symphony Chorus, and the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, to perform William Walton’s oratorio Belshazzar’s Feast.

The 2019-20 season featured a new performance of Beethoven’s Christ on the Mount of Olives with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle at the Palau de la Música Catalana. At the start of the 2020-21 season, Orfeó Català, together with the Cor de Cambra del Palau, starred in a new collaboration with Gustavo Dudamel, whom, at the head of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, conducted Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at the Palau de la Música Catalana. In July 2021, Orfeó Català celebrated the centennial of the national premiere of St. Matthew Passion with two extraordinary concerts, with soloists from the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Orquestra Simfònica Camera Musicae, and the Cor Infantil de l’Orfeó Català, all under the baton of Simon Halsey.

During the COVID-19 crisis, Orfeó Català continued running rehearsals and performing concerts without a break. The highlights of this upcoming 2021-22 season include the performance of Oltra mar by Kaija Saariaho, together with the OBC, conducted by Anna Maria Helsing at the Palau, and the international tour of Puccini’s Messa di Gloria with the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Gustavo Gimeno, at the Palau de la Música Catalana, the Théâtre des Champs Élysées in Paris, and the Orchestre Philharmonie Luxembourg, with the choir making its debut at these prestigious concert halls.

Orquestra Simfònica del Vallès (OSV) is a reality which has been taking music to people’s hearts since 1987 (this year we celebrate our 35th birthday!). Emotions are our forte, and in order to communicate them, we increasingly try to get closer to our audience and encourage them to participate. Furthermore, we try to innovate in the presentation of our concerts and our way of making music, and we are working very hard to develop our compromise in quality with our community, from the city of Sabadell, which is our base, to the whole world. Co-founders of Fundació Òpera Catalunya, we were born as an opera symphony orchestra becoming, one year later, a private company where musicians and management team are employees but also shareholders, a unique and very singular case of a private orchestra in Spain.

We have our own season of concerts in the Palau de la Música Catalana, “Simfònics al Palau”, a series in co-production with the Palau, which starts the 27th edition this year, and we make more than 100 symphonic concerts a year all around Catalonia and Spain.

Our main conductors have been: Albert Argudo (1988-1992), Jordi Mora (1993-1997), Salvador Brotons (1997-2002), Edmon Colomer (2002-2005), David Giménez Carreras (2006-2009), Rubén Gimeno (2009-2016) and James Ross (2017-2018). Currently and from 2018 Xavier Puig is our main chief.

Following this path of innovation in musical programmes and formats, within the last years we have been involved in several Film&Music projects (“Pyscho”, “Riders of the lost Ark”, “Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone”, Buster Keaton’s “The General”, “Homage to John Williams”) and other multimedia shows like “The legend of Zelda” and “Videogames live”, some of them produced by the OSV and other made for third parties like Live Nation or Proactiv.

We are the Spanish orchestra with the most impact and more followers in social network, with more than 22.200 followers on Twitter, 19.000 on Facebook, 5.000 on Instagram and, jointly with Banco Sabadell, we made the flashmob "Som Sabadell", with C/Narcís Giralt, 40 · E-08202 Sabadell · Tel.: (+34) 93 727 0300 · Fax: (+34) 93 727 2228 | osv@osvalles.com almost 90 million visits on YouTube, the most watched video of a symphonic orchestra on the planet. More info about as in www.osvalles.com.

David Lawrence is widely regarded as one of the UK's most versatile conductors, working with orchestras, symphony choruses, and choirs and ensembles of all genres. He was nominated for a Gramophone Award for his conducting, has recently been awarded a prestigious ARAM by the Royal Academy of Music, and holds the Guinness World Record for conducting the UK's largest choir of 6,846 singers.

David's work has taken him to Singapore, Colombia, Canada, the United States, India, the United Arab Emirates, throughout Europe, and Australia. He is a popular guest conductor, and he is an experienced and respected trainer of choral conductors.  He has adjudicated for international festivals and at the BBC Choir of the Year and Young Musician of the Year competitions. With particular experience in the field of contemporary music, David has prepared and conducted premiére performances by Per Nørgård, Pierre Boulez, Iannis Xenakis, Mauricio Kagel, Graham Fitkin, James Wood, Bob Chilcott and others.  As a guest chorusmaster of the Netherlands Radio Choir he has worked with many conductors such as Kenneth Montgomery, Frans Brüggen, and John Adams, and in 2002 working closely with Stockhausen he also conducted this exceptional choir in the German premiére of Scene II from his opera Sontag aus Licht.

David has conducted the London Philharmonic Choir, Hallé Choir, London Symphony Chorus, the CBSO Chorus, and the national youth choirs of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. He has directed large scale education projects with the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera, the English Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and the CBSO, for whom he is an Associate Conductor.  In 2011 David conducted an award-winning performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony with the Barrier Reef Orchestra in Queensland, and has conducted the CBSO in a massed performance of Carmina Burana, the Orchestra of Opera North with their Inspiration Choir, Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony for Hull’s City of Culture Festival, and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Huddersfield Choral Society for the BBC's Songs of Praise.

David is Choral Adviser to Sinfonia Viva with whom he has worked closely since 1998.  He is the conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra's Community Choir and Senior Youth Choir, and as Principal Conductor of Young Voices, a position he has held for more than 20 years, directs massed youth choirs in an annual series of 20 concerts.

In 2021 he was delighted to be invited to take the reins of the Harrogate Choral Society.  Other highlights for 2021 and 2022 include a return to Australia for his 17th visit, where he will conduct in Tasmania and Queensland, a return to live singing with Sinfonia Viva, preparation of the LSO Community and Youth Choirs for Sir Simon Rattle, the 2022 season of Young Voices concerts, and getting to know the singers at Harrogate.

Choral Connections, October 2021