This week Juanjo Mena embarks on a brilliant and tightly-packed schedule which will run until January 2015, and will include concerts with two of the most prestigious North American ensembles, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic, and other orchestras with which he is closely associated, such as the BBC Philharmonic, of which he is Chief Conductor, the Spanish National Orchestra and the Madrid Symphony Orchestra.
“This was the best all-French concert I have heard for a long time…..
I can’t think of a more sympathetic/enthusiastic conductor for this music than Juanjo Mena. His sense of orchestral balance was superb, as was his care over, among other things, dynamics, colouration, and rhythmic/lyrical contrast.” (Geoff Diggings, Seen and Heard International)
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“The music glinted and sparkled as it made its inevitable, quicksilver progress…. This was a highly successful LPO debut for Juanjo Mena, a partnership that hopefully will continue, for it has great potential.”
(Alan Sanders, Classical Source)
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“Thrilling French fare from the LPO and Juanjo Mena”
(Katy Wright, Bachtrack)
“Mena led a sparkling performance of Schubert’s Great Symphony in C major” (Aaron Keebaugh, Boston Classical Review)
“Mena had the orchestra sounding warmer and soft-edged. The textures seemed three-dimensional, as he pinpointed each unusual color within.” (David Weininger, The Boston Globe)
“It is difficult to remember having enjoyed a performance of the Fourth as much as this” (Rohan Shotton, Bachtrack)
“The final pages of the symphony were moving into the realm of the ecstatic, and rightly earned that huge reception.” (Robert Beale, Manchester Evening News)
“Exhilarating and transparent Choral Symphony from the BBC Philharmonic” (Michael Cookson, Seen and Heard International)
This year’s Veranos de la Villa summer festival in Madrid concludes with an open air concert in the Plaza Mayor, by the Orquesta y Coro de Radio Televisión Española under the baton of Juanjo Mena, in which they will perform Carl Orff’s mighty Carmina Burana.
Juanjo Mena will lead the BBC Philharmonic in two concerts during this season’s prestigious BBC Proms festival at the Royal Albert Hall, London. The works will include Elgar’s evocative ‘Enigma’ Variations and Mahler’s mighty Fifth Symphony. For more information, click here.
Juanjo Mena, Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic, is to begin a tour with the orchestra on 15th March, with a series of eleven performances to be given in the most important concert halls in Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Croatia and Hungary. The programmes will include symphonies by Mendelssohn, Dvorák and Bruckner and percussion concertos, including HK Gruber’s “Rough Music”, with Martin Grubinger.
The Guardian
“Mena’s handling of the work’s grand arc from dawn to dusk was majestic… the fine detail had the intense glitter of water droplets within the profound buffeting delivered by this incredible, pan-Mancunian meta-band.”
The Arts Desk
“Mena’s conducting was expansive and expressive, showing admirable control and majestic pacing.”
Seen and Heard International
“Under Juanjo Mena the performance of ‘An Alpine Symphony’ was a simply stunning experience. The whole concert was something special and will live long in the memory.”
“Also Sprach Zarathustra and Don Quixote showed Mena to be a Straussian of real finesse and stature. He has a superb ear for tone colour.”
“ It was the Spanish conductor and frequent visitor to the Oslo Philharmonic Juanjo Mena who added colour to tonight’s concert…. In Schubert’s great C major Symphony, we experienced just what gives the Symphony its nickname, namely ‘the great’ ”
Review of the 12.10.2013 concert in Manchester by Michael Cookson
The BBC Phil, under the baton of Juanjo Mena, produced an electrifying performance, remarkable not only for its rhythmic power but also for the beauty of the more reflective moments
Looking back on the BBC Philharmonic’s Prom concerts in 2013.
The trio of Renée Fleming, the Houston Symphony and Juanjo Mena thrilled a packed Jones Hall audience for the opening night of the orchestra’s hundredth season.
Following his debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2011, Juanjo Mena returned this year to lead the season’s closing concert at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on Thursday, the 30th of May.
El Correo has just published an interview with conductor Juanjo Mena