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Ricardo Iznaola has pursued a multi-faceted musical career for over four decades as concert and recording artist, composer, teacher, lecturer, and writer. An American citizen, he was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1949, lived and studied in Venezuela, where his musical roots began to grow and develop, and Spain, where he was mentored by the great Spanish master Regino Sainz de la Maza, with whom he developed a deep professional and personal relationship. He has won nine prizes as performer and composer in Venezuela, Spain, England, Germany and the United States. Critics, colleagues and audiences in four continents have being unanimous in highlighting the importance of his re-discovery and promotion of the monumental Sonata by Antonio José, which he has edited and published with Bèrben in Italy, his interpretations of music by the Spanish composers of the so-called Generation of 1927, and his unique transcriptions of piano and orchestral masterpieces such as Chopin’s Waltzes, Ravel’s Alborada del Gracioso, or Manuel de Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance.
Ricardo Iznaola’s didactic works have become standard texts for the training of guitar professionals, and are used as required materials in many prestigious conservatories and universities in the U.S. and Europe. These include Kitharologus – The Path to Virtuosity, a technical handbook; On Practicing, an essay on practicing approaches; and The Physiology of Guitar Playing, a treatise on the physiomechanics of guitar playing. Mr. Iznaola’s comprehensive treatise on the art of guitar playing, Summa Kitharologica, is in progress.
Worthy of mention among his orchestral, chamber, vocal and solo works are the symphonic suite In the Eyes, a Silver Dagger – Four Symphonic Tableaux after Lorca’s Blood Wedding, the guitar concerto Tiempo Muerto , Musique de Salon (in versions for solo guitar, guitar duo, various mixed ensembles, guitar and string orchestra. etc.), Gran Guaguancó for cello and guitar, Beethovenspiel for violin and guitar, Tríptico Criollo for flute or violin and guitar, Corinna’s Songbook for mezzo-soprano and piano, Danzas de la Abuela for flute, cello and guitar, Trio Classico for flute, viola and guitar, and, among the solo guitar works, the Sonata Daedalus, the Ten Etudes-Homages, Death of Icarus (in memoriam Regino Sainz de la Maza,) Music for Blood Wedding, among many others.
Since 1970, when his debut recording with the world-premiere of Antonio Lauro’s legendary Sonata was released by the Promus label in South America and Belter in Spain, Ricardo Iznaola has produced 15 recordings for the Promus, Columbia and Luthier labels. In 1991 he founded his own recording and publishing company, IGW (Iznaola Guitar Works), through which his most recent and critically acclaimed CD’s have been issued. IGW has recently released a double CD set, Heritage – The Guitar in Venezuela, an anthology of music by Venezuelan composers and a double CD set with Mr. Iznaola’s guitar arrangement of Franz Schubert’s lieder cycle Die Winterreise (Winter’s Journey), with acclaimed American basso Kenneth Cox.
Ricardo Iznaola is Artist-in-residence, Director of the Conservatory Program and Chair of the Guitar and Harp Department at the Lamont School of Music of the University of Denver, where he has been honored with the Distinguished Faculty Artist Award in 1990 and the 1999 University Lecturer Award. In 2004, he was awarded the John Evans Distinguished Professorship, the highest distinction bestowed by the University of Denver. Since 2001 he has been a faculty-artist at the prestigious Bowdoin International Music Festival, in Maine, USA.
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This is Scott O’Neil’s sixth season with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. He most recently served as associate conductor for the Utah Symphony, which he joined in August 2000. O’Neil has guest conducted the Houston Symphony, Houston Youth Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Annapolis Symphony, Florida Philharmonic, Tulsa Philharmonic, Portland Symphony (Maine), the Lubbock Symphony, the Boise Philharmonic, the Salt Lake Symphony and the Columbus Symphony in Ohio. O’Neil studied piano performance at the Oberlin College Conservatory, served as the assistant conductor of the Eastman School Symphony and Philharmonia Orchestras at the Eastman School of Music, and earned a master’s degree in orchestral conducting at Rice University, where he was the director of the Campanile Orchestra, a community/university orchestra. In 1999 he served as director of orchestras at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, Texas. In the spring of 2003, O’Neil was selected by the League of American Orchestras (LAO) to conduct an orchestra comprised of members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and advanced students from the University of Southern California in Synergy, a program created to promote young, contemporary composers. Also in the spring of 2003, O’Neil was selected by LAO to appear on the Conductor Preview with the Jacksonville Symphony.
O’Neil leads the Colorado Symphony in every series this season, including educational concerts and appearances on each of the Colorado Symphony’s Masterworks, Family Series and Pops Series. In addition to his work with the Colorado Symphony, Mr. O’Neil is the founder and music director of the Rosetta Music Society, a group of chamber players that present interactive concerts at the Englewood Arts Center. This is Mr. O’Neil’s first appearance with the Boulder Symphony in concert.
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