Are you a lover of the piano, especially in concert? Then on June 9, 2022 at 7pm at the National Theatre, you cannot miss out on an opportunity to enjoy one of the modern-day piano masters at work.
The Embassy of Spain, in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, will host the musical concert ‘Night of Dreams’ at the National Theatre in Accra, as part of its cultural diplomacy and with the aim of bringing Spanish and Ghanaian societies closer together through art and culture.
The show will consist of several performances by the renowned Spanish pianist Enrique Bagaría together with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ghana, Friends of Music Choir and the drums and dances of the Great Africa Heritage Dance Ensemble. The show will take the audience on a journey through Spanish, Ghanaian and European classical music.
The musical event aspires to be an encounter of musical traditions from Spain, Ghana and Europe, as well as a way to explore forms of fusion and dialogue between them. Rhythm and musical notes are universal and shared by all cultures. The performance also aims to revitalise the cultural scene and industry in Ghana.
What is the significance of the concert’s title, ‘Night of Dreams’? We want the audience to be able to disconnect from their daily lives, their problems and concerns, and simply be transported to unknown and magical territories where their dreams can come true through music and dance. All of this takes place in the magnificent setting of the iconic National Theatre.
During the show, there will be some musical surprises that will no doubt galvanise the audience.
During his visit, Enrique Bagaría will give a workshop at the School of Performing Arts of the University of Ghana (Legon), and will meet the students of the Universal Wonderful Street Academy in Jamestown.
Enrique Bagaría has studied in the most prestigious musical schools in Barcelona, Madrid, Paris and Munich. Throughout his career, he has received numerous awards in piano competitions, both national and international. It is worth noting his first prize in the 52nd edition of the international competition ‘Maria Canals’ (Barcelona 2006).
Ha has a phenomenal international career, with performances in countries such as Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Russia, China, the United States, Ukraine, Belgium, Colombia and soon Ghana. In the field of teaching, he has been a professor at the Superior Conservatory of Music of Aragon. Currently, he is a professor at the Superior Conservatory of Music of the Liceu in Barcelona, where he teaches piano and chamber music at a master’s degree level.
The concert, ‘Night of Dreams’, powered by Globe Productions, is sponsored by GB Foods, Comet/Wagcol, Kempinski Hotels and Meridian Apartments (Platinum); Centunion, KLM/Air France, Miniplast, Office Bureau (Gold) ; and Opein, Chestnut and Robert Smith Law Group (silver). The Spain-Ghana Chamber of Commerce, AECID (Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation), the Creative Arts Council, UNESCO and the National Theatre are partners of the project.
A profile of Enrique Bagaría
The enthusiasm of the critics and the esteem of the public confirm Enrique Bagaría as one of the distinguished names of the Spanish piano scene of nowadays.
He started his musical studies with professors Rosa Masferrer and Luis de Moura Castro. He obtained the degree on Piano Studies at the Conservatorio Municipal de Barcelona. He continued his mastering at the École Normal de Musique Alfred Cortot of Paris with maestro Aquilles Delle Vigne. He made the postgraduate at the Conservatorio del Liceo de Barcelona with Stanislav Pochekin. He continued with Dimitri Bashkirov, Galina Eguiazarova and Claudio Martínez Mehner at the Escuela Superior de Música of Madrid, and with Vadim Suchanov at the Richard Strauss Konservatorium of Munich. Parallelly at these studies, he received masterclasses of artists like Alicia de Larrocha, Elisso Virssaladze, Josep Maria Colom, Andrzej Jasinski, Ralph Gothoni, Vitaly Margulis, Andrew Watts, Boris Petrushansky, among others.
Along his career, he has received a number of distinctions in national and international piano competitions. In between those, there is the first prize of the 52nd edition of the International Piano Competition ‘Maria Canals’ (Barcelona, 2006) and his performance at the XV International Competition of Santander ‘Paloma O’Shea’ (2005). Both of them meant an important turn of his career. From then on, his improvement has been constant, and now he enjoys an important recognition in his country and abroad.
He performs often at the principal concert halls and festivals such as Palau de la Música and L’Auditori de Barcelona, Auditorio Nacional and Teatro de la Zarzuela de Madrid, Palau de la Música de Valencia, Auditorio de Zaragoza, C.C. Miguel Delibes of Valladolid, Teatro de la Maestranza, Festival de Música y Danza of Granada, Ibercamera, Festival Internacional de Santander, Musika-Música de Bilbao, Sociedad de Conciertos de Alicante and many others.
Internationally, one can remark his performances at Philharmonia of Saint Petersburg, National Filharmonic of Kiev, Teatre dal Verme of Milan, salle Alfred Cortot of Paris, Academia de España in Rome, concert hall Luis Ángel Arango in Bogotá, Oriental Art Centre de Shanghái, National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, and in New York, Chicago, Brussels and Munich.
He has played with prestigious international orchestras such as Simphonic Orchestra of Mariinsky Theatr in Saint Petersburg, Wiener KammerOrchester, Salzburger Kammerphilarmonie, Filharmónica de Bogotá (OFB) and with the principal orchestras of Spain: Orquesta Sinfónica de Barcelona y Nacional de Catalunya (OBC), Sinfónica de Galicia (OSG), Sinfónica de Castilla y León (OSCyL), Orquesta de Valencia.
He has played as a soloist with conductors Valeri Gergiev, Vasily Petrenko, Yoon Kuk Lee, Francisco Rettig, Pedro Halffter, Eduardo Portal, Salvador Brotons, Manuel Galduf, Lucas Macías and Víctor Pablo Pérez.
In the chamber music section, the duets he forms with the violinists Josep Colomé, Aitzol Iturriagagoitia and the violist Joaquín Riquelme stand out. Bagaría has played with ]W[ Ensemble, formed by musicians from the orchestra of the Lucern Festival, the Elias String Quartet, the Cuarteto Quiroga, Stefano Canuti, Lucas Macías, Guilhaume Santana, Vicent Alberola, José Vicente Castelló, Josep Fuster, Ona Cardona, Ashan Pillai, Alejandro Bustamante, Josep Colomé, Erez Ofer, Alexandre da Costa, Latica Honda-Rosenberg, David Apellániz and Pau Codina. From 2016, he is a member of the Cervelló Trio with Josep Fuster and Ashan Pillai.
He has recorded the complete works for piano by Jordi Cervelló with the record company Columna Música. In 2016, he released his CD, ‘Enrique Bagaría plays Haydn’, with a selection of the Viennese composer piano Sonatas, and he received very good critics from the musical press. This CD with Eudora Records has been nominated for ICMA Awards in 2017, one of the most important international awards for recorded classical music. He has also recorded recently and with the same record company the complete Brahms´ piano quartets with the ‘The Brahms Project’ beside Josep Colomé, Joaquín Riquelme and David Apellániz and, violin and piano sonatas by Debussy, Strauss and Janácek with the violinist Aitzol Iturriagagoitia.
He has been invited to be part of the jury of national and international piano competitions such as Flechilla-Zuloaga, Juventudes Musicales de España, Primer Palau or at the 61 Concurso Internacional de Música Maria Canals, held in Barcelona on March 2015.
In the pedagogical field, he has been professor of the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Aragón and Esmuc de Barcelona. Presently, he is professor of piano and chamber music at Master’s degree level of the Conservatorio Superior de Música del Liceu de Barcelona.
He has taught courses and masterclasses in different competitions such as the Panticosa International Festival, the Forum Musikae International Academy of Music and Dance in Madrid, the Piano Music Mentoring Matters Course in Alcañiz, at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, at the University from Guadalajara, Mexico.
