Band - Orquesta Espana

The Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España (OCNE), with a history dating back over more than sixty years, started out on a new phase in its career during the 2003-2004 season when Josep Pons took over as principal conductor. Under his leadership, the organisation and image of the OCNE are being updated, and its artistic and cultural ambitions are being fostered in the programmes of its regular concert series in Madrid.

From the purely musical point of view, programming has expanded to include not only the basic Western symphonic repertoire but also many first performances of both new music and newly-recovered music from earlier periods. The OCNE also endeavours to give added cultural interest to its programmes by following specific themes. Under the heading Music and Myth, the current season includes works from different periods and with different styles - from Galatea by Handel to the world's first performance of Prometeo, commissioned especially from Alfredo Aracil, as well as Iphigenia by Gluck, Orfeo by Haydn, Phaedra by Britten, etc. Cervantes' Don Quixote and the Vienna of 1900 were the themes of previous OCNE concert series. Another recent initiative of interest, entitled Carte blanche for ..., involves a set of orchestral and chamber concerts devoted to a modern-day composer, offering not only works by the composer in question but also works chosen by them. Hans Werner Henze and George Benjamin were the recipients of the "carte blanche" during the 2004-5 and 2005-6 seasons respectively.

The OCNE is thus continuing and stepping up its interest in new music. Over the years, this has led to a large number of commissioned works and world premieres, as well as the presence on the rostrum of former maestros such as Stravinsky and Hindemith, and living ones such as Halffter, Penderecki and Benjamin.

The Orquesta Nacional de España was first created in 1937, during the Spanish civil war, and became a permanent fixture in 1942. Since then, it has offered concerts constantly, during its extensive seasons in Madrid, at the main international festivals held in Spain - Granada, Santander, San Sebastián - and during tours around Spain and in Europe, the Americas and Asia. It has always aimed to serve as a vehicle for the main orchestral repertoire, from baroque to the modern-day, with a special focus on Spanish music.

Amongst the most important of its principal conductors were Ataúlfo Argenta, who raised the orchestra to a high artistic level during its early years, and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, its most frequent conductor. During the orchestra's first period, outstanding guest conductors included Carl Schuricht, Heinz Unger, Hermann Scherchen, Sergiu Celibidache, Igor Markevitch and Jean Martinon. Many of the most relevant vocal and instrumental soloists of the second half of the 20th century have performed alongside the OCNE - Arthur Rubinstein, José Iturbi, Wilhelm Kempf, Claudio Arrau, Alicia de Larrocha; Yehudi Menuhin, Nathan Milstein, David Oistrakh, Leonid Kogan; Mstislav Rostropovich, Pierre Fournier; Jean-Pierre Rampal, James Galway; Victoria de los Ángeles, Norma Procter, Jessye Norman, Gundula Janowitz, Teresa Berganza, and the list continues in recent years with other renowned soloists from the international concert scene