Pomàrico, Emilio

Italian conductor and composer born in Buenos Aires, Emilio Pomàrico is invited to conduct the most prominent European orchestras including the Radio Symphony Berlin, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Bamberg Symphony, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, BBC Scottish Symphony, the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest in Hilversum, and the ORF Radio Symphony-Symphonieorchester in Vienna. He also conducts opera in many leading theatres.

He is a regular guest conductor at major international music festivals such as Salzburg, Edinburgh, Agora and Manifeste in Paris, Vienna Festival, Wien Modern, Musikfest in Berlin, Venice Biennale, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Musik der Zeit and Musik Triennale in Cologne, Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik, Musica in Strasbourg, Zaterdag Matinee in Amsterdam, Huddersfield, Ultraschall in Berlin, and Styrian Autumn in Graz. He has conducted contemporary music ensembles such as Musikfabrik, Remix Ensemble, Ensemble Resonanz, London Sinfonietta, Asko/Schoenberg, Collegium Musicum, Ensemble intercontemporain, ensemble recherche, and Ensemble Modern Orchestra.

Over the past years Pomàrico has conducted memorable world premieres, including Emanuel Nunes’s Quodlibet in Lisbon (1991), Omnia mutantur nihil interit in Paris (1994) and Musivus in Lisbon (1996) and Cologne (new revised version, 2001), the entire cycle of Luigi Nono’s Caminantes in Paris (1999), and Wolfgang Rihm’s Séraphin Symphony in Donaueschingen (2011). He has presented Georg Friedrich Haas’s opera Melancholia (Paris Opera). He premiered the same composer’s Concerto for Baritone Saxophone and Orchestra with soloist Markus Weiss and the WDR Orchestra in Cologne (2008) and Ich suchte, aber ich fand ihn nicht at Munich’s Musica Viva festival (2012). After having premiered the entire cycle of Brian Ferneyhough’s Carceri d’invenzione in Geneva, Zurich and Paris, Emilio Pomàrico conducted the first performance of the composer’s Finis terrae at the Paris Festival d’Automne (2012). Hans Zender entrusted to him the premiere of his Logos Fragmente, and a recording of the performance of this work at the Berlin Philharmonic in 2011 was released by WERGO.

Another achievement was the new production of Helmut Lachenmann’s opera Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern at the Rhur Triennale Festival in Bochum, with Emilio Pomàrico conducting the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and Robert Wilson as stage director (September 2013). In the following year he conducted the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra at the same festival in a new production of Morton Feldman’s Neither (dir. Romeo Castellucci).

In November 2014 he presented the first Latin American performance of Luciano Berio’s Coro at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. His recording of Morton Feldman’s Violin and Orchestra released by ECM (with violinist Carolin Widmann and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra) won the Coup de Cœur of the Académie Charles Cros in 2013. In 2015, he conducted Berg’s Wozzeck at the Dijon Opera (with the SWR Symphony Orchestra). Later he conducted Klangforum Wien in a new production of Sciarrino’s Luci mie traditrici at the Vienna Festival, and Ensemble Modern in the world premiere of Johannes Maria Staud’s Specter of the Gardenia oder Der Tag wird kommen at the Styrian Autumn in Graz.

Emilio Pomàrico’s own compositions have been performed at major contemporary music festivals and recorded by ensemble recherche for Zeitklang.