A Latin American Escapade with Rafael Payare^2024-2025

With his innate musicianship, gift for communication, and irresistibly joyous spirit, conductor Rafael Payare is Music and Artistic Director of both Canada’s Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM) and California’s San Diego Symphony (SDSO), as well as Principal Conductor of Virginia’s Castleton Festival and Conductor Laureate of Northern Ireland’s Ulster Orchestra. Payare is celebrated for his expertise in late Romantic repertoire while also cultivating the next generation of composers with regular commissions and performances of new works. A veteran of Venezuela’s El Sistema program – in which he began playing horn at the age of 14 – and 2012 first prize winner at Denmark’s Malko Competition for Young Conductors, Payare remains dedicated to inspiring younger musicians, regularly working with youth orchestras and establishing mentorship programs like El Sistema OSM and the SDSO Conducting Fellowship. Payare resides in San Diego and Montreal with his wife, acclaimed cellist Alisa Weilerstein, and their two young children.

Principal Trumpet with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal since 1995, Paul Merkelo has been featured frequently as a soloist with the OSM, notably on tours to South America and at the Lincoln Center in New York. He has been also been featured with orchestras worldwide, including the English Chamber Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, Sapporo Symphony Orchestra, Venice Baroque Orchestra and Eastman Wind Ensemble. Merkelo’s first solo recording, A Simple Song was ranked Number One on Quebec’s classical records chart in 2000. In 2004, Analekta released his highly praised second CD, Baroque Transcriptions, which was nominated by the ADISQ in the category Best Classical Album of the Year. French Trumpet Concertos with the OSM and Kent Nagano was nominated for a JUNO Award in 2016. He is the founder of the Paul Merkelo Scholarship.  

Baritone Gustavo Castillo, who comes from Barquisimeto (Venezuela), owes the beginning of his musical education to El Sistema, a renowned music project in his home country. From 2016 to 2018 Castillo was a member of the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala in Milan, where he started his stage career singing Peter in Humperdinck’s Hansel und Gretel and Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia for children. 

To his future projects belong his debut as Giorgio Germont in La Traviata at the New National Theater in Tokyo, his debut as Scarpia in Tosca at Hannover State Opera and he will also sing Amonasro in Aida at Teatro Coccia. In concert he sang Estevez Cantata Criolla with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at the May Festival. Furthermore, he sang Ginastera’s Estancia with the Los Angeles Phil under Gustavo Dudamel and Carmina Burana at the Teatro Verdi in Salerno.