Guitarist Pablo Sainz-Villegas premieres ‘Riojana’

The Riojan guitarist Pablo Sainz-Villegas premieres ‘Riojana’, a classic piece of folklore inspiration composed expressly for him by the Canarian Laura Vega. It is part of the program of the concert that the instrumentalist offers this Thursday at Bodegas Marqués de Vargas (at 7:00 p.m.) together with the Texan quartet Agarita and the Madrid violist Cecilia Bercovich, within the La Rioja Festival.

‘Riojana’ is a work for guitar and string quartet inspired by melodies of popular origin from this land. The project was born in 2023 at the request of the Cuerdas en Común Association to be premiered by Sainz-Villegas at the festival that he promotes and directs. In this way, the performance of the artistic director of the festival himself, together with Agarita, the first resident artist, and a work composed for the event by the event’s first resident composer, the aforementioned Laura Vega, will come together in this concert.

This is the first edition in which La Rioja Festival has these guest figures, common in theaters and cultural institutions, but not so much in festivals. The Canarian Laura Vega (Gran Canaria, 1978) is one of the most promising young composers on the national scene. In 2023 she premiered her first concerto for guitar and orchestra, ‘Luz, amor y éxtasis’, dedicated and also premiered by Sainz-Villegas and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

For its part, the resident artist is the Agarita chamber quartet, founded six years ago in the city of San Antonio (Texas, USA). It is formed by: Sarah Silver Manzke (violin), Marisa Bushman (viola), Ignacio Gallego (cello) and Daniel Anastasio (piano). His philosophy coincides with that of Sainz-Villegas: organizing and celebrating musical activities in his hometown and working to bring classical music to new audiences. The quartet is dedicated to offering auditions, reinventing the traditional concert experience. They offer a new way of interpreting classical and contemporary music to provide a new and open experience to listeners. Along with them, the Madrid violist Cecilia Bercovich will share the stage.

The concert will also perform works by Stephen Hartke, Joaquín Turina, Andrea Casarrubios, George Gershwin, Caroline Shaw, Jessica Meyer, Jessie Montgomery and John Williams, one of the most famous composers of film music, who in his day also wrote a piece for Sainz-Villegas.