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On 11 July, the Tonkünstler-Orchester will give the world premiere of a new orchestral work by Fabián Panisello at the Grafenegg Festival, conducted by the composer himself.
The PluralEnsemble has recorded important works by Fabián Panisello for a recently released portrait CD.
Luigi Boccherini, Campane dell’Ave Maria y Tamburo dei Soldati (From La musica notturna delle strade di Madrid op. 30 Nr. 6 G. 324)
José María Sanchez-Verdu, Las ínsulas extrañas
Luigi Boccherini, Il rosario (From La musica notturna delle strade di Madrid op. 30 Nr. 6 G. 324)
Alberto Carretero, Con certo in certo
Luigi Boccherini, Minuetto dei Ciechi y Passa Calle (From La musica notturna delle strade di Madrid op. 30 Nr. 6 G. 324)
Jesús Villa Rojo, Recordando a Falla
Luigi Boccherini, Il tamburo y Ritirata (From La musica notturna delle strade di Madrid op. 30 Nr. 6 G. 324)
Manuel de Falla, Concerto for harpsichord, flute, oboe, clarinet, violin and violoncello
Fabián Panisello, conductor
Mahan Esfahani, harpsichord
Plural Ensemble
Silvestre Revueltas, Sensemayá
Joaquín Rodrigo, Concierto de Aranjuez
Fabián Panisello, Crossing Lines
Manuel de Falla, El Sombrero de tres Picos (The Three-Cornered Hat) - Suite No. 1
Manuel de Falla, El Sombrero de tres Picos (The Three-Cornered Hat) - Suite No. 2
Fabián Panisello, composition
Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich
Pablo Sáinz Villegas, guitar
Jesus Torres, Pentesilea
Marius Díaz, Abracadabra
Fabián Panisello, à 5
Israel López Estelche, Hidden Dances
Arnold Schönberg, Pierrot Lunaire op. 21
Johanna Vargas, soprano
Fabián Panisello, Japanese Pictures
Junko Yamamoto, piano
The Argentinian-Spanish composer and conductor Fabián Panisello moves at the height of the times with his lively, vivid and finely differentiated tonal language. The long-time director of the Reina Sofía Conservatory in Madrid began his training as a composer in his hometown of Buenos Aires with Francisco Kröpfl. In 1993, as a student of Boguslaw Schaeffer, he graduated with distinction from the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He received further inspiration from Elliott Carter, Franco Donatoni, Brian Ferneyhough, and Luis de Pablo, and in conducting from Péter Eötvös and Jorma Panula.
Fabián Panisello's compositions continue to be performed by renowned interpreters. The Arditti Quartet premiered his Three Movements at the Takefu Festival in 2006. Pierre Boulez conducted the SWR Symphony Orchestra in 2008 with the orchestral work Aksaks. Under the direction of Péter Eötvös, the Orquesta Nacional de España premiered Mandala in 2009. In the field of vocal music, his Gothic Songs, which premiered in 2012 at the Alte Oper Frankfurt with baritone Leigh Melrose, was followed by two monodramas: L'Officina della resurrezione was launched in Katowice in 2014 with baritone Holger Falk; The Raven was premiered by mezzo-soprano Annette Schönmüller with the PluralEnsemble in Madrid in 2022. The Amaryllis Quartet and oboist Ramón Ortega Quero premiered Seven Japanese Sketches in October 2023, and in January 2024 Radovan Vlatković premiered a new horn concerto with the Spanish Radio Television Orchestra conducted by Erik Nielsen.
The premiere of his chamber opera Le Malentendu, based on the stage play of the same name by Albert Camus, was enthusiastically received in 2016. The world premiere of his opera Les Rois mages, commissioned by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation and the Foundation of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, was also a great success. After its premiere in January 2019 at the Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid with the PluralEnsemble conducted by the composer, the work was presented in Nice, Tel Aviv, Vienna, and Klagenfurt. His third opera, Die Judith von Shimoda, with a libretto based on a text by Bertolt Brecht, was premiered to great acclaim at the Bregenz Festival in August 2023 and then performed in Vienna. The opera was nominated for the Austrian Music Theatre Prize as the best world premiere.
Fabián Panisello is currently working on Change, a semi-staged piece for baritone, Noh singer (Ryoko Aoki), ensemble and electronics, commissioned by the Kontakte Festival für elektroakustische Musik & Klangkunst at the Akademie der Künste Berlin in collaboration with the Ensemble OENM Salzburg. The world premiere is planned for June 2027 in Berlin, followed by the Austrian premiere in Salzburg in 2027. In addition, Fabián Panisello will compose and premiere a new orchestral work as Composer in Residence at the Grafenegg Festival in 2025 and lead the Composer-Conductor-Workshop Ink Still Wet.
Fabián Panisello is the founder and artistic director of the PluralEnsemble, one of Europe's most outstanding new music ensembles. Both with his ensemble and as a composer, he is a regular guest at major festivals for contemporary music such as Wien Modern, Présences, Ars Musica, Ultraschall, Aspekte, and Klangspuren Schwaz. As a conductor, Panisello has also led the Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, and the Israel Contemporary Players, among others. In February 2022, he conducted Luis de Pablo's last opera El Abrecartas at the Teatro Real Madrid with extraordinary success. Other guest conducting engagements include Orquesta Sinfónica National in Buenos Aires, Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife, Joven Orquesta National de España (JONDE), Concerto Budapest Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Savaria Symphony Orchestra and ensembles such as Paramibao in Quebec, Turning Point in Vancouver, United Berlin, UMZE in Budapest, and Riot in London.
His work has been recognized and championed by Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio, and Karlheinz Stockhausen, among others. He has received various awards including the Salzburg Preis der Erben Mozarts and the Premio Iberoamericano de Composición Rodolfo Halffter. Fabián Panisello is a member of the Argentine Academy of Arts. He appears regularly as a guest lecturer at institutions such as the Eötvös Foundation in Budapest, the China Conservatory of Music in Beijing, the Domaines Forgés in Canada, the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, and the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Recordings of his music have appeared on labels such as NEOS, Col Legno, Cypres, Verso, IBS Classical, and Columna Música. His compositions are published by Edition Peters.
2024/2025 season
This biography is to be reproduced without any changes, omissions or additions, unless expressly authorised
A list of all works by Fabián Panisello can be found on the Wise Music/Edition Peters website.
Conducted Orchestras and Ensembles
Repertoire as conductor
"...and in the Basque National Orchestra, which, under the baton of Fabián Panisello, sounded precise, clear and intense, lending the appropriate colour to every gesture in Hosokawa's work. It was an unforgettable interpretation... Colourful (trumpet colour, harp colour...) are precisely the small pieces in which Webern interrupts Bach's Ricercata a 6. Panisello has carefully reconstructed the mosaic, which is not so easy."
beckmesser, Álvaro Guibert, 21/6/2025
Conductor: "Panisello's musical direction demonstrated a superb knowledge not only of the score but of the gears De Pablo uses to summon worlds and atmospheres, bringing out the brilliance of an orchestra that once again spread across the stalls"
La Razón, Mario Muñoz Carrasco, 18/02/2022
"Conductor: Fabián Panisello's musical direction was key to the success. There is much to co-ordinate in this score where the rhythmics are complex and the instruments are constantly exposed. Panisello's gesture is one of absolute cleanliness. He makes no movement that is not useful and creates an atmosphere of security and order that makes possible the expressive deployment of voices and instruments."
El Español, Alberto Guibert, 17/02/2022
Conductor: "Polyphonies, homophonies, heterophonies and mixtures go hand in hand; and Fabián Panisello, who has studied the work from cover to cover, knows this well. [...] He has been able to fuse the disjointed and give the action an elegant continuity, highlighting the various shades and chiaroscuros and carefully supporting the vocal recitative of the different singers"
Scherzo, Arturo Reverte, 17/02/2022
Conductor: "At the helm, Fabián Panisello has taken on a complex and difficult task with knowledge and brilliance so that the work has been premiered in all aspects with every guarantee".
El Mundo, Tomás Marco, 17/02/2022
Composer: “Owing to the pandemic on DVD, but nevertheless a true music theatre event: the Austrian premiere of Fabián Panisello’s Rois Mages was ground-breaking.”
Die Presse, 24/03/2021
Composer: “The Vienna staging of [Fabian Panisello’s] Music Theatre for Mezzo-Soprano, Ensemble, and Electronics, which was premiered two years ago in Madrid, is nothing less than a fantastic magical trove in which mirrors, projections, and video seem to upend gravity, making real the unreal."
Die Presse, 24/03/2021 - Les rois mages
Composer: “Panisello’s music captivates for over an hour, with its fractured, jaggedly errant qualities, electronically distorted as if to acoustically mirror the physical structure of the kinetic light stage.”
Fabián Panisello – Le Malentendu (scene 1)
Fabián Panisello – Le Malentendu (scene 2)
Fabián Panisello – Le Malentendu (scene 12 und 13)
Fabián Panisello - Les Rois Mages
Fabián Panisello - Arnold Schönberg, five Pieces for Orchestra op. 16, pieces no. 1 & 2
Fabián Panisello - Pierre Boulez, Sur Incises, Part I
Fabián Panisello - L'officina della resurrezione
Fabián Panisello - Violín Concerto
Fabián Panisello - Trumpet Concerto
Fabián Panisello - Libro del Frío - Introducción
Fabián Panisello - Three Movements For String Quartet - I Light in water
Fabián Panisello - Gothic Songs 1, A Dream Within A Dream
Fabián Panisello - Pierre Boulez, Le Marteau Sans Maître, mov. III
Fabián Panisello - Pierre Boulez, Le Marteau Sans Maître, mov. V
Fabián Panisello - Estudios para piano - II Chroma 2
Fabián Panisello - Estudios para piano - IX Aksaks II
Anette Schönmüller, Anna Davidson, Ana Maria Alonso, Plural Ensemble, IBS Classical, 2022, IBS162022
Leigh Melrose, Laia Falcón, Holgar Falk, PluralEnsemble, Columna Música, 2017
Marco Blaauw, Francesco D’Orazio, PluralEnsemble, NEOS, 2015, 11070
Dimitri Vassilakis, NEOS, 2013, NEOS10946
Allison Bell, Ensemble Meitar, VERSO, 2011, VRS2112