Jesús Rodríguez Picó

Jesús Rodríguez Picó (born Barcelona, Spain, 12 July 1953) Composer, clarinet player and pedagogue. He studied at the Conservatori del Liceu where he obtained a certificate as a clarinet teacher, to later complete his training in France. He collaborated with many ensembles specialized in contemporary repertoire, like the Grup Instrumental Català (GIC) and Solars Vortices, as well as forming a duo with the pianist Manuel Cabero. As a performer, he has strived to promote clarinet music and contemporary creations, in addition to working in musical pedagogy and also in various tasks relating to cultural management.

His catalogue is abundant with chamber works and particularly works written for the clarinet or the saxophone, and often fruit of his friendship and collaboration with different instrumentalists. Some wonderful examples are Sonata marina, for saxophone and piano, andVolt, Preludi i dansa and Horo, both for clarinet. Another big part of his works are for orchestra, for both a concert and symphony poems, such as: La ciutat i les estrelles (Concertino per a piano i orquestra, 1979); Diomira (1980); El lleó afamat (Preludi per a orquestra, 1988) and Concert n. 1 per a clarinet i orquestra (1989), all premiered by theOrquestra Ciutat de Barcelona (currently the OBC), from 1980 to 1989. In the nineties, there were the premieres of Simfonia americana, commissioned by the Orquesta Nacional de España (ONE) at the Auditorio Nacional de Madrid, and Cadmos et Harmonie, for guitar and strings, done by Jordi Codina and the Orquestra de Cambra Catalana. Later releases were Simfonia n. 2, «Anàbasi» (1993), inspired by a poem written by the French poet Saint-John, premiered by the OBC in 2000; L’Illa Misteriosa, doble concert per a saxòfon alt, percussió i orquestra, premiered in 2007 by the Orquestra Julià Carbonell de les Terres de Lleida, conducted by Alfons Reverte; Fantasia sobre l'òpera 'El viatge de Marlow', premiered by the Orquestra de Càmara de la Filarmònica Checa at the Festival de Torroella de Montgrí in the summer of 2007; Quasi una Polka, commissioned by theOrquestra Simfònica de Sant Cugat, premiered in 2008; Concertino per clarinet i cordes, premiered in 2009 by the Orquestra Nacional Clàssica d'Andorra at the Palau de la Música Catalana, and Danses d'Ibèria, premiered the same year by the OBC at l’Auditori de Barcelona, with Eiji Oue as the conductor and in honor of the centennial commemoration of the death of Isaac Albéniz.

Also interested in creating for the stage, he wrote chamber operas too. El paradís de les muntanyes (1994), with text by Miquel Desclot, based on the work of Alfred Jarry, premiered at the Teatre Lliure de Barcelona in 1998. Other operas are Hotel Occident, Urbs and Vera. In September 2008, the Menorcan baritone Lluís Sintes premiered in Japan his lieder cycle La flor del cirerer, on poems written by the singer himself. On the side, he also wrote the book Xavier Benguerel, obra y estilo(Idea Books, 2000). In 1987, he worked on a project for the radio station Catalunya Música, where he worked as head of programming until December 1990.

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