EarlyMusicNews.Org

Al Ayre Español was founded in 1988 by Eduardo López Banzo with the objective of avoiding the mistaken clichés that often surrounded the performance of Spanish baroque music. The spirit of the ensemble made this possible thanks to musicological rigor, performance excellence and with the main purpose of giving new breath to music from the past, making them appear as recent compositions, and then offering them to the contemporary audience.

The name of the ensemble was inspired by the title for a guitar Fugue of the Calanda (Aragón) composer, Gaspar Sanz. In this Fugue he indicated the musician to play with "ayre español" (in the Spanish way). Unfortunately, precisely what that meant has remained in the 17th Century.

With the passing of the time, Al Ayre Español has become not only a prestigious ensemble, but moreover a performance philosophy, finally giving meaning to the Gaspar Sanz's indication. This has been achieved through lot of reflection, performance and mastery. Al Ayre Español is now a way of performing and enjoying music that Eduardo López Banzo has being creating as a work-in-progress, recognisable, requested and acclaimed all over the world, and for all these reasons was awarded the 2004 Spanish National Music Prize.

The fact that Al Ayre Español is more than a specialised early music ensemble, that represents the musical philosophy "al ayre español", has allowed the project to be flexible. This has made it possible to adapt itself to different formats, as a baroque orchestra -acknowledged by its performances of Handel and Bach- and lately as a classical-romantic orchestra -with opera and concert performances of Haydn and Mozart.

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Category: Ensembles/Performers/Associations/Societies / Orchestras/Chorus

Added on: Jan 30, 2011 | Hits: 489