The City of Granada Orchestra (OCG) was created in 1990 with Juan de Udaeta as chief conductor. Since then Josep Pons, Jean-Jacques Kantorow and Salvador Mas have all held this position. Andrea Marcon has been artistic director since the 2017–18 season.
The OCG has given concerts in all the main halls and festivals in its national area. International engagements have taken the orchestra to Switzerland (Gstaad Festival), Italy (Teatro alla Scala in Milan), Portugal (Festival Internacional de Música de Coimbra), Austria (Musikverein in Vienna), as well as tours of France, Germany and the United Kingdom, where they have been widely acclaimed by audiences and critics.
The City of Granada Orchestra has been awarded the Medal of Honour of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Granada, the ‘Manuel de Falla’ Andalucía Prize for Culture and the Andalucía Prize for Music, the Medal of Honour of the International Music and Dance Festival of Granada and the Medal of Honour of the Andalusian Government.
Tomás Marco was born in Madrid in 1942. He studied violin and composition as a boy, continuing his musical training while also undertaking a degree in law. He went on to study in France and Germany with Maderna, Boulez, Stockhausen (whose assistant he became in 1967), Ligeti and Adorno, but also took courses in psychology, sociology and the performing arts. Marco has won many prizes, including Spain’s National Music Prize (1969); awards from the Gaudeamus Foundation (1969 and 1971), the Sixth Paris Biennale and the Casals Centenary Competition; an Arpa de Oro (Golden Harp) trophy and a UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers prize. He has taught composition at the Madrid Conservatory and music history at Spain’s National University of Distance Education. As well as having written several books, he has lectured at various European and American universities and institutions and has worked as a critic across the different media.
Marco spent eleven years working in Spanish National Radio’s music programming, winning further awards as a broadcaster (National Broadcasting Prize and Ondas Award). Between 1981 and 1985 he was general manager of Spain’s Orquesta y Coro Nacionales, and from 1991 to 1995 their technical director. For ten years, from 1985 to 1995, he was director of the CNDM (National Centre for the Promotion of Contemporary Music), setting up its electro-acoustic laboratory and establishing the Alicante International Festival, directing its first eleven editions. Marco was made a member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in 1993, and in 1996 was appointed festival director for the Madrid Regional Council. Between May 1996 and July 1999 he was director general of the INAEM (National Institute of Drama and Music), and in 1998 was awarded an honorary doctorate by Madrid’s Universidad Complutense.
Marco has written six operas, a ballet, nine symphonies and choral and chamber music, as well as works in other genres. He currently devotes his time exclusively to composing and writing about music. In November 2002 he received the Spanish National Prize for his body of work, and in 2003 was awarded the Madrid Regional Council’s Music Prize.
Courtesy of Tomás Marco
English translation by Susannah Howe