The bands participating in the First Section of the “Ciudad de Valencia” 2024 International Music Band Contest will have to perform the score “Sucro Oppidum” by Javier Martínez Campos as a mandatory piece.
BIOGRAPHY JAVIER MARTÍNEZ CAMPOS
Javier Martínez Campos was born in Valencia in 1989. He studied cello and composition at the Madrid Royal Conservatory, going on to further his training at the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Dusseldorf (Germany), the Fondation Louis Vuitton (Paris), Rey Juan Carlos University (Madrid), Miguel de Cervantes European University, IGECA and the University of Castilla-La Mancha.
As a performer, he was the Assistant Principal Cello for the Orquesta Sinfónica de Bilbao from 2015 and 2019, an academist of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra, the Orquesta Juvenil Iberoamericana, the Joven Orquesta Nacional de España, the Netherlands Jugend Orchestra and the Jove Orquestra de la Generalitat Valenciana, and he has collaborated with ensembles such as the Duisburger Philharmoniker, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife, the Beethoven Orchester Bonn, the Kammeroper Köln, the Orquesta de Cámara Andrés Segovia, and the Banda Municipal de Bilbao, among others.
He has won 30 international prizes for composition and performance, including the 9th Premio de Composición Musical para Orquesta “Andrés Gaos” (A Coruña, 2011) and 1st prize in the 4th Concorso Internazionale di Composizioni “Cittá di Sinnai” (Italy, 2012). He won the 2nd Premio Talento Joven de la Comunidad Valenciana Levante-EMV/Bankia (Valencia, 2014) and 2nd prize in the Gaetano Amadeo Prize contest (Italy, 2021).
As a composer he has received commissions from the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España, the INAEM, the JONDE and the Ministerio de Cultura y Educación, the Fundación SGAE/AEOS – Orquesta Sinfónica de Bilbao, L’Orchestre Parfum (Paris) and BilbaoMusika, among others. His works have been performed in Spain, the USA, Colombia, France, Japan, Germany, Austria, and the UK, by soloists and ensembles such as the Symphony Orchestras of RTVE, Bilbao, Galicia, Euskadi, the Municipal Wind Bands of Madrid, Valencia, Bilbao, Castellón, Albacete, Almería, and the University of North Carolina Wind Ensemble.
He is currently the Assistant Principal Cello of the Orquesta Nacional de España and a composer.
MANDATORY PIECE: «SUCRO OPPIDUM»
“Sucro Oppidum” is a work for wind band written in 2011 as part of the composer’s final project for his degree at the Madrid Royal Conservatory. It received a “Segnalazione all´unanimità” at the XXIX Concorso Internazionale di Composizione per Banda de Corciano (Italy) in 2013 and is dedicated to the author’s parents: Javier and Librada.
Lasting approximately 15 minutes, the piece pays homage from a personal artistic and subjective perspective to the Valencian town of Cullera, which is located on the banks of the river Júcar, next to the Mediterranean sea and has a distinguished past and cultural history.
The title refers to the ancient Roman town of Sucro, identified as the Contestani Iberian settlement previously known by the Greeks as Sicania, as well as the encampment established by Publio Cornelio Escipión “El Africano” at the halfway point on his journey from Tarraco (Tarragona) to Cartago Nova (Cartagena) to conquer this last city.
According to various texts, Sucro was found in an elevated location (oppidum) on the Mediterranean coast and next to the mouth of the river Júcar. It was a settlement with great strategic and commercial importance. Although there are disagreements concerning the exact location of this ancient town (Cullera, Albalat de la Ribera, Sueca or Alcira), recent studies suggest that Sucro Oppidum may have been sited at the summit of the Muntanya de Cullera (L’Alt del Fort), while the Mansio Sucronem, mentioned in the majority of the itineraria from the imperial period, may have been located in today’s Albalat de la Ribera (L’Alteret de la Vintihuitena) and the Portum Sucrone, mentioned in later itineraria, corresponds to L’Illa dels Pensaments, in the Faro de Cullera.