November 2021
“The National Symphony Orchestra was led by the Spanish conductor Juanjo Mena, who struck precisely the right balance of body and soul in a program bookended by Schumann and Brahms […] the former chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic made a memorable mark. He’s got a way with conjuring and releasing pressure, and can just as easily construct towering columns of sound as scatter them into clouds. […] Mena’s nimbleness was a large part of what gave the overture to Schumann’s 1848 “Manfred” the humanity required to hear the composer’s heart in the chest of the Byronic hero. It was one of the best openers I’ve heard all season. [In Brahms’ Third Symphony] Mena and the orchestra managed its triumphant tuttis as carefully as its many intimacies — the way the first movement quite literally peaces out; the design of the woodwinds that so beautifully illuminates the andante and accentuates the aching grace of the third movement.”
– Michael Andor Brodeur, Washington Post