The Division Three will perform «Cerulean Overture» by Julio Domingo

The bands participating in the Third Section of the “Ciudad de Valencia” 2024 International Music Band Contest will have to perform the score “Cerulean Overture” by Julio Domingo as a mandatory piece.

BIOGRAPHY JULIO DOMINGO

Julio Domingo (Spain, 1990) started writing music in his teens, under the mentoring of Miguel Ángel Mateu and Ferrer Ferran. He studied Composition in Castellón while working as a producer in the program Nuestras Bandas de Música and collaborating with several bands, orchestras, bigbands and chamber music groups.

As a composer has a catalogue of more than 60 works for different settings and styles, being some of them awarded in international contests, such as the fantasy Dríades del Bosque (Italy 2013) and the symphonic poem Leviathan (Cullera 2022). In 2020 writes Versos al Alba as a test piece for the Certamen Provincial de Valencia and in 2023 wins the 3^rd Concurso de Pasodobles Villa de Ayora. As an arranger has prepared music for orchestras such as PhilZuid and the Royal Dutch Navy Band, and artists like Australian soprano Mirusia Louwerse.

He has studied Conducting with Jan Cober and Ivan Meylemans at Conservatorium Maastricht, where also founded the Maastricht Winds band. In 2019 won the Golden Baton at the International Conductor’s Competition in Osnabrück (Germany), and in 2020 was invited by the MISA Youth Symphony Orchestra from Georgia.

Nowadays studies Opera Conducting with Enrico Delamboye and is conductor of the bands in Beek en Donk and Ohé en Laak, the fanfare De Lauwerkrans Mopertingen and the Jack Million Orchestra, activities that combines with composing and arranging.

 

MANDATORY PIECE: «CERULEAN OVERTURE»

Cerulean -also caerulean– represents a palette of blues. A colour seen on the seas, on the lakes, on some minerals, flags, paintings and on bright and clear skies. A colour full of intensity, life and energy.

Blue is also the uniform of the Harmonie Wilhelmina Wolder Maastricht, «De Blouw vaan Wolder», one of the biggest wind bands in the city of Maastricht (The Netherlands), which in 2018 celebrates 110 years of history and where, since a few years, I have the pleasure to play trombone, under direction of Ghislain Bellefroid. It is a family with which I have grown as a musician and where I have made some great friends. To all of them, with all my gratitude, I want to dedicate this piece.

Cerulean Overture follows the structural principles of classical overtures. A quick and frenetic introduction gives path to an almost unstoppable succession of melodies, alternating rhythmic and playful moments with some other more lyrical, solemn and expressive. The score ends on a majestic climax, full of energy.