The groups participating in the Third Section of the International Wind Band Contest «City of Valencia» 20255 will have to perform the score “Euphonika» by Llorenç Mendoza as a compulsory piece.
BIOGRAPHY
Llorenç graduated from the “Joaquín Rodrigo” Conservatory of Music in Valencia, specialising in clarinet. He has taken numerous courses in Musical Improvement in Orchestra, Band and Choir Conducting, Pedagogy, Composition and Musical Analysis, Computer Science applied to Music, etc. taught by great masters.
He has served as principal conductor of various Bands in the Valencian Community, obtaining a multitude of awards in the different competitions in which he has competed. Also noteworthy are the professional groups he has conducted as a guest: the Municipal Symphonic Bands of Madrid, Tenerife and Castellón, as well as the Granada Classical Orchestra.
He was awarded the prestigious “EUTERPE” PRIZE for the best band recording by the FSMCV, the AM “L’Amistat” of Quart de Poblet awarded him the “AMICS DE L’AMISTAT” PRIZE, in its IX Edition his work “Titelles” Op. 12 Concertino for flute and symphonic band, won the silver medal at the prestigious Global Music Awards in the USA, just as his work “Euphonika” has just received another silver medal at these prestigious awards.
He has been invited by the FERRIS STATE UNIVERSITY of Michigan (USA) to teach classes and direct the different resident artistic groups of the University itself, he has also been part of the jury of the National Band Competition of Paipa (Colombia).
In the field of pedagogy and musical education, he has more than 30 years of experience as a teacher, currently being a professor of Analysis and Harmony at the Professional Music Conservatory of Torrent, artistic director of the Societat Musical «Santa Cecilia» of Alcàsser and director of the Training and Didactics Workshop applied to Conducting entitled «Music, Maestro».
COMPULSORY PIECE: «EUPHONIKA»
Commissioned by the International Society for the Research and Promotion of Wind Music (IGEB), on the occasion of its Fiftieth Anniversary in 2024. The aim of this association is to research, investigate and explore all aspects and topics related to wind music by means of international conferences in which musicologists, composers, conductors, various performers and fans in general can exchange ideas and knowledge, thus promoting and through the publication of its magazine, Alta Musica, the dissemination of said research and promotion.
Through the work, the composer wants to transmit in the form of «flashes» or «winks» to different composers, styles or representative works of the band composition panorama, during the 50 years of life of the society.
The piece is divided into three sections, beginning with a majestic and radiant 5-bar introduction that takes us back to 1966, in the town of Sindelfingen, near the German city of Stuttgart, where the germ of founding a “Committee for Research in Wind Music” arose from the meeting of a small group of researchers, performers and fans of wind music. Eight years later, the current IGEB was created.
The first section represents the first steps of the group and its subsequent consolidation. Everything starts with the first congress held in 1974, at the University of Music in Graz.
The second section represents a parenthesis in the journey of the IGEB during its half-century of existence. A period of reflection, of uncertainty, of rethinking ideas in the face of the technological upheaval that this beginning of the 21st century is bringing.
The third and final section reflects the global COVID pandemic of 2020. The Congress at which this overture premieres was initially scheduled to take place in July 2020, but due to COVID restrictions, it was postponed to July 2024. The work ends with a brilliant and frenetic final coda intended to radiate a widespread feeling of hope and optimism for the near future and the generations to come.