17-07-2009
Pablo González, the OBC’s new young conductor

ANA MARÍA DÁVILA, El Mundo.

He doesn’t want to be a sprinter, but a long-distance runner. He doesn’t make dazzling promises. His aims are long-term ones. And to achieve them, he will have to work hand in hand with the musicians. Pablo González, born in Oviedo, feels confident and is feeling “fully motivated”.

“I won’t be running against the clock, but a long-distance race”, González says. He is the young man chosen to replace the Japanese Eiji Oue as Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the OBC (Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Catalonia) from September 2010. González, who has signed a five-year contract (until 2015), knows it is a great challenge. He is also aware that his youth and inexperience make him a risky bet, but he believes he will succeed. 

He has clear ideas: “the orchestra needs a strong but participative leadership. I want the musicians to feel that they are being listened to, because I won’t be able to carry out any project without their commitment. And I’m certain that in order to earn that commitment I must know the orchestra deeply, for there is no music without communication”.

Born in Oviedo in 1975, Pablo González has been Assistant Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, the National Youth Orchestra of Spain and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. In October 2008 he was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the “Orquesta Ciudad de Granada”.

The OBC could turn out to be an uphill struggle for Pablo González: he will be replacing a conductor – Eiji Oue - who has the unanimous support of the orchestra members, and who had had strong disagreements with his predecessor, the Catalan Ernest Martínez Izquierdo. “I know where things stand and, although I have had few encounters with the musicians, I think they know that it is time to turn the page”, he says.

González will try to do the job expected of every Principal Conductor: to make the orchestra grow. To begin with, he remarks that the stage acoustics “should improve”. In his opinion, “the musicians are high quality ones. The problem is that the individual skills are stronger than the collective performance of the orchestra”. To counteract this he proposes “to turn to chamber music, so that the orchestra behaves like a big group, whose quality is not dependent on the conductor”.

González has started making plans for next year: he talks about his “willingness towards Catalan music” and his wish to achieve “an equilibrium between the standard repertoire and innovative proposals”. González keeps quiet about future collaborations with great stars. He reveals, though, his will to team up with François Bou, the Frenchman who was yesterday presented as the new OBC Managing Director.

(Translation: Covadonga González)