Portuguese Maestro Filipe Cunha to Conduct Concerts of the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba

Next Sunday, March 12, at 11:00 a.m., the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba will perform a varied program in the Covarrubias Hall of the National Theater of Cuba.

The concert will be conducted by the Portuguese conductor Filipe Cunha, invited by the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba, who will perform in the first part of the show the overture from the opera The Marriage of Figaro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, considered one of the best creations of the Salzburg genius and one of the most important operas in the history of music. The four-minute overture premiered in Vienna on May 1, 1786, under the baton of the great classical composer.

Next is the Suite for Clarinet and Strings by Cuban composer Beatriz Corona, with clarinetist Maray Viyella as soloist, who performed this piece last year with the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by the young Cuban maestro César Eduardo Ramos.

The Sunday concert will conclude with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 in E minor, opus 64, written between May and August 1888. Those who attend this concert will enjoy one of the most popular works by the Russian composer who, according to his biographers, was a musical admirer of Mozart.

Maestro Filipe Cunha is the first Portuguese conductor to conduct the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba. A few days ago, on Saturday, March 4, he conducted the Orchestra of the Lyceum Mozartiano of Havana in the San Felipe Neri Oratory.

Cunha studied flute and clarinet and became first clarinet soloist in the Banda Sinfónica. He then completed the Advanced Conducting Course at the European Conducting Academy. Throughout his musical career, he has performed in several countries in Europe, Latin America, the United States and Canada.