PALOMO, LORENZO  

Lorenzo Palomo is one of the most successful contemporary Spanish composers, not only in Spain but also internationally. Córdoba, his home town, and the character and passion of Andalusian life, with its music strongly rooted in elements and melismas both Jewish as well as Arab, are always present in the majority of his compositions, a source of inspiration. Obtaining his initial instruction at the Córdoba Conservatory, he continued his studies at the Barcelona Superior Conservatory of Music with Joaquín Zamacois (composition) and Sofía Puche de Mendlewicz (piano), graduating with prizes in counterpoint and fugue and in composition. With an award from the Juan March Foundation he studied orchestral conducting with Boris Goldovsky in New York.

Lorenzo Palomo’s music has been performed in leading concert halls throughout the world, including Carnegie Hall in New York, Covent Garden in London, Suntory Hall, Tokyo, the Moscow Tchaikovsky Auditorium, Berlin Konzerthaus and Geneva Victoria Hall.

Among his most important compositions are La leyenda del Monte Bangkay (The Legend of Mount Bangkay), a ballet given its première in Manila in 1980, his Canciones españolas (Spanish Songs) first performed at Carnegie Hall by Montserrat Caballé in 1987, and Nocturnos de Andalucía first performed in the Berlin Konzerthaus in 1996 by Pepe Romero and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos.

His Concierto de Cienfuegos, for four guitars and orchestra, commissioned by the Composers’ Society was first given in 2001 at the Seville Teatro de la Maestranza by the Romero Quartet with the Seville Royal Symphony Orchestra under Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, and Cantos del alma (Songs of the Soul), for soprano, clarinet and orchestra, on texts by Juan Ramón Jiménez, was given its première in 2002 in Barcelona by the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra under Jesús López Cobos.

Dulcinea, a cantata-fantasia for four vocal soloists with texts by Carlos Murciano, was first given on 15th May 2006 in the Berlin Konzerthaus with the chorus and orchestra of the Berlin Deutsche Oper, with Ainhoa Arteta as soloist, conducted by Miguel Ángel Gómez Martínez. His most recent work, Sinfonía a Granada, for soprano, guitar and orchestra, a commission from the Regional Government of Granada, had its first performance with María Bayo, Vicente Coves and the Orchestra of the City of Granada under Jean-Jacques Kantorow on 10th June 2007 in the Manuel de Falla Auditorium.

Among the orchestras that have performed compositions by Lorenzo Palomo are the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Deutsche Oper Orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Turin RAI Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonic Orchestras of Bergen and Oslo, the Symphony Orchestras of Boston, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Phoenix and North Carolina, the American Sinfonietta, the New Russia Phiharmonic Orchestra of Moscow, the Cuba National Orchestra, the Spanish National Orchestra (on tour in the United States in 2001), the Symphony Orchestras of Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao, San Sebastián, Sevilla, Córdoba, Málaga and Granada.

Lorenzo Palomo lives in Berlin where he served as a member of the Deutsche Oper from 1981 to 2004.