The bands participating in the Honorary Division of the 2023 “City of Valencia” International Music Band Contest will have to interpret the score “Homage to Joaquín Sorolla (Symphonic pictures)” by the composer Bernardo Adam Ferrero as a mandatory work.
BIOGRAPHY BERNARDO ADAM FERRERO
Bernardo Adam Ferrero began his musical training in the Algemesí band and at the Superior Conservatory of Music in Valencia. He was Extraordinary Award for solfeggio, counterpoint and fugue and piano; he also studied harmony, composition and orchestra conducting. He continued his preparation at the conservatories of Madrid and the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. In Paris he studied orchestration and conducting at the National Superior Conservatory of Music.
He was principal director of the band “Santa Cecilia” from Enguera, Societat Artístico Musical de Benifaió, Ateneo Musical de Cullera, Banda “Primitiva” de Lliria and the Orchestra of the Unió Musical de Llíria.
In 1963 he joined the National Corps of Civilian Music Band Directors and, in 1975, he entered the Army Music Directors Corps, conducting the band of the División de Infantería Motorizada “Maestrazgo” No.3 of Valencia, the Music of the Military Government of San Sebastián and the Madrid Marine Infantry Symphonic Band.
He has been technical director of the International Music Band Contest “Ciutat de Valencia”, director of the International Religious Music Week of Plasencia and of the International Religious Music Week of Valencia. Likewise, he has directed two congresses for composers at the Palau de la Música in Valencia and the International Wind Music Congress in Castellón.
He has been Honorary President of the M.I. Academy of Valencian Music and Corresponding Academician of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando (Madrid).
COMPULSORY PIECE: «Homenaje a Joaquín Sorolla (Symphonic pictures)»
Putting music to the pictorial work of the Valencian painter means entering a world of light, color, harmony, chromaticism, poetic impression, aesthetic and dynamic proportions, etc.
This is precisely what the music intends, which, based on four relevant paintings, and under the adjective «symphonic», suggest a Palleter with his enormous personality, his famous cry, his push and intimate reflection. The musical work aims to convey the inspiring message in all and how many details come together in this painting.
The vigor of this first scene contrasts with that of Pescadoras Valencianas, where music and localness come together in a smooth, soft, calm way… The English Horn outlines the theme with subsequent re-exposure by the entire group.
The painting Sol de la tarde presents us, through music, the very impression of the painting in its sound beginning and, later, with a present movement of the main theme that recalls the leisurely rhythm of oxen and fishermen in the sea.
The last movement, inspired by the painting Las grupas, preserved in the Hispanic Society of New York, sonorously blends the vigorous rhythm, the delicate harmonies, the description of the festivity and the Mediterranean taste that Sorolla evokes at all times in his paintings and that it has led him to the fame of the great universal artists.
