Cre­at­ing a Music Tra­di­tion for the 21st Century

Spaniard Mar­cos Gal­vany, a multi-talented, young and charis­matic, 21st-Century clas­si­cal com­poser, pro­ducer and FB res­i­dent will debut his first opera, Oh My Son, at Carnegie Hall in New York City on Sat­ur­day April 10, 2010 at 8 pm. Michael Rossi, Plá­cido Domingo’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Pro­gram Assis­tant Con­duc­tor of the Wash­ing­ton National Opera, will be con­duct­ing the Oh My Son pre­miere accom­pa­nied by an ensem­ble of gifted, tal­ented, and inspir­ing young musi­cians and singers: the New Eng­land Sym­phonic Ensem­ble, St. Patrick’s Cathe­dral Choir, and the fine soloists.

For those who have never been exposed to, or expe­ri­enced, live opera, Oh My Son is an ideal oppor­tu­nity to be inspired, moved, and quite pos­si­bly awed.

The Oh My Son pro­duc­tion emanates Mar­cos’ sig­na­ture style, a dis­tinc­tive com­bi­na­tion of mod­ern world clas­si­cal and his beloved Span­ish melodies, inter­twined in a very sub­tle way through­out his works. The clar­ity and sophis­ti­ca­tion of his melodies are sub­tly evocative.

The pre­miere is the cul­mi­na­tion of years of work, begin­ning as songs, and matur­ing into melodies and arias. Now, after much hard work and sac­ri­fice, finess­ing and per­fect­ing of scores, ongo­ing intense rehearsals with musi­cians, soloists, and the choir, the debut is upon us. Among those who have heard Oh My Son, the early con­ver­sa­tion is that this work may become asso­ci­ated with Easter the way The Mes­siah is inex­tri­ca­bly linked to Christmas.

Indeed, the inspi­ra­tion for this opera, was instilled in Mar­cos as a young boy grow­ing up in the foothills of Cre­vil­lente, Spain. He wit­nessed the very famous Ben­l­li­ure sculp­tures, which were donated to his town by the artist, as they were paraded on floats through the town in obser­vance of Sem­ana Santa before Easter. The mag­nif­i­cence of these fig­ures cap­ti­vated the young Mar­cos, and, along with the Bib­li­cal sto­ries that his mother would whis­per to him in hushed tones as each float passed by, left an indeli­ble impres­sion accom­pa­nied by melodic seeds to thrive in his fer­tile imagination.

For those inter­ested in the visual art inspi­ra­tion, there is cur­rently on exhi­bi­tion at the National Gallery of Art The Sacred Made Real: Span­ish Paint­ing and Sculp­ture, 1600–1700 that closes May 31, 2010. As National Gallery typ­i­fies the show, “arrest­ingly real sculp­tures and paint­ings of the saints, the Immac­u­late Con­cep­tion, and the Pas­sion of Christ are among some 20 Span­ish mas­ter­pieces of the 17th cen­tury on view in a land­mark exhibition…”.

For more infor­ma­tion about the opera, go to www.SeeOhMySon.com. For those inter­ested in join­ing the num­bers of D.C. peo­ple attend­ing and becom­ing part of this very spe­cial pre­miere, tick­ets can be pur­chased at www.carnegiehall.org begin­ning at $15.