A Latin American Escapade with Rafael Payare ^2024-2025

Rafael Payare’s prodigious musicianship, technical brilliance and charismatic presence on the podium have made him one of the world’s most sought-after conductors. A graduate of the celebrated El Sistema music education program in Venezuela, Mr. Payare began his formal conducting studies in 2004 with José Antonio Abreu. Since winning the prestigious Malko International Competition for Young Conductors in Denmark in 2012, Maestro Payare’s career has advanced rapidly. Since 2015, he has served as Principal Conductor of the Castleton Festival, founded by his mentor the late Lorin Maazel. He was Chief Conductor and Music Director of the Ulster Orchestra from 2014 to 2019 and in 2019, took up the position of Music Director of the San Diego Symphony. In recent years, Rafael Payare has conducted many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras, including those of New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Zurich, Berlin, Vienna, London, Munich, Chicago and Paris. He has also made important opera debuts at the Glyndebourne Festival, Stockholm’s Royal Swedish Opera, the Royal Danish Opera, and most recently at London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. In the 2022-2023 season, Payare became the ninth Music Director in the history of the OSM.

To consult:
rafaelpayare.com
Long biography

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.