Aarón Zapico

Aarón Zapico

Conductor

Aarón Zapico is managed worldwide by Rozemarijn Tiben and Fernando de Testa.

Contact:
Artist Manager
E: rozemarijn.tiben@interartists.nl
T: +31 6 34 272 282

Assistant Artist Manager
E: fernando.detesta@interartists.nl
T:
+33 7 48 25 93 63


Aarón Zapico is a Spanish conductor with an undeniable status as a specialist in the baroque and classical repertoire, celebrated for his daring and innovative performances. For over two decades, he has made a profound contribution to the restoration of Spanish musical heritage and the revitalization of the classical music sector through his cutting-edge programs.

Currently, his focus lies in directing baroque opera and orchestral music. He collaborates with renowned soloists and delves into contemporary music and interdisciplinary projects that merge various artistic disciplines such as theatre, cinema, and literature. His bold programs consistently garner praise for their cohesion and quality.

Aarón Zapico gained international attention during the summer of 2023 when he opened the prestigious Granada International Music and Dance Festival. His direction of the Orquesta de Granada in a program centered around the figure of Don Quixote, featuring a scenic performance of the opera "El Retablo de Maese Pedro" by De Falla, preceded by orchestral suites by Boismortier and Telemann, at the Palace of Carlos V at the Alhambra, received high acclaim.

In the 2024/25 season, he makes his debut with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife, conducting Haydn’s Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze, combined with the contemporary work Sheba by José María Sánchez Verdú. He opens the season with the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias in a programme including works by J.S. Bach, Vivaldi, Garay and Boccherini on the occasion of Asturias’ Day. He also returns to the Basque National Orquestra, conducting their participative Messiah by Händel, among other engagements.

Last season, he led the premiere in modern times of Francesca Caccini’s opera La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina, a coproduction of the Teatro Real and Teatros del Canal. He also made his debut in front of the Real Filharmonía de Galicia, the Orquesta de Córdoba and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Bilbao. Previous highlights include concerts with the Orquesta de Castilla y León in a theatrical French baroque program, concerts in Mexico City with the Academia de Música Antigua, and participative Messiah concerts in Granada. In 2022, he conducted the RTVE orchestra in a program featuring a unique repertoire of Spanish and English composers, ranging from Renaissance to the 18th century, including works by Mateo Flecha, Charles Avison, Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga, Doménec Terradellas, and Juan Francés de Iribarren.

As a guest conductor, Aarón Zapico has collaborated in recent years with orchestras including the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, Orquesta de Extremadura, Orquesta Filarmónica de Málaga, Orquesta Sinfónica de Bilbao, Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Oviedo Filarmonía and the Orquesta de la Radio Televisión Española (RTVE), among other orchestras. Vocal soloists he worked with include Maite Beaumont, Vivica Genaux, Ruth Iniesta, Christopher Lowrey, Carolyn Sampson and Hilary Summers, among others. He is also a frequent guest at early music festivals throughout Europe, such as the Bach Festival in Eisenach, the Händel Festival in Halle and at the Rudolfinum in Prague. His work as a guest conductor is paralleled by the musical and artistic direction of Forma Antiqva, considered one of Spain's most influential period ensembles.

Co-founding Forma Antiqva in 1999 with his brothers Daniel and Pablo Zapico, they have delivered performances across Europe, Asia, and Latin America. In their innovative programs, Forma Antiqva engages with local creative projects, blurring traditional performance conventions and challenging the boundaries between performers and the audience.

Born in Asturias, Aarón Zapico initially trained as a classical pianist at the Conservatory of Oviedo, after which he specialized in early music and harpsichord at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. He has served as a professor at various conservatories and as a visiting lecturer at universities in Spain, Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, Australia, and Singapore. With a restless, committed, and entrepreneurial spirit, he has founded associations and platforms for the protection of musicians' rights, initiated social projects that use music as an integrating element, and even established Spain's first early music competition.

Aarón Zapico has received numerous awards and honours from the press, radio, and television, as well as from city councils, musician associations, festivals, and cultural foundations throughout Spain. Among these accolades is the Prize for the Best Conductor from the Association of Spanish Ensembles of Early Music in 2019. His discography has earned multiple nominations for the International Classical Music Awards.


 
 

Haydn/Sánchez-Verdú: Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze. Festival de Granada. Academia Barroca del Festival de Granada. July 2024

Aarón Zapico, along with the narrator Enrique Árbol, gave a reading with a daring version by alternating Haydn’s original with Sánchez-Verdú’s studies, not always in the expected order of original and recreation. However, they always left the element of surprise in the sounds that the Cádiz composer draws out as a skilled orchestrator from an orchestra that performed with full dedication and quality to the mastery of the Asturian conductor. This conductor, capable of seamlessly blending two works into one with total naturalness, careful attention to contrasts, and a handling of dynamics where silence is as important as sound, took advantage of the reverberation of the monastic church to leave us with “Aaron Zapico’s final words in Granada,” which are part of the festival’s own history.
— La Nueva España

Domenico Scarlatti’s La Silva, Forma Antiqva at the Auditorio Nacional Madrid. April 2024.

The selection of invariably beautiful and varied instrumental fragments—sometimes a single movement, other times a complete short work—proved very apt for blending the arias without distracting attention. The eleven excellent musicians on stage naturally supported this. And, above all, by Aarón Zapico’s effective, dynamic, and incredibly communicative direction, attentive to every detail and building a solid musical structure.
— Scherzo

La Liberazione di Ruggiero by Francesca Caccini, Teatros del Canal/Teatro Real, June 2024.

In the instrumental part, all the members of Forma Antiqva proved to be an absolute delight of vitality, style, passion, and constant, hard work, resulting in a fluid, vibrant, and colorful foundation on which the vocal soloists, always comfortable and supported, could perform their roles with ease. This was largely thanks to the splendid musical direction that Aarón Zapico provided from the harpsichord, as he was an active leader at all times, always attentive to every detail, to every recitative—of which there are countless—but allowing the freedom that the soloists needed for the music to feel organic, while also maintaining a consistently stable and infectious beat that the entire orchestra executed in an exemplary manner. [...] The soloists of the Madrid Symphony Orchestra adapted at all times to the style set by Aarón Zapico, creating a beautiful symbiosis between modern and period instruments.
— Ritmo

Los Elementos by Literes, Forma Antiqva at the Palau de la Música Valencia, April 2024.

Aarón Zapico, one of the major names in the realm of Spanish early music and also one of its great “rescuers,” conducted with ease, lightness, and stylistic sense the three episodes of the opera—Night, Dawn’s Beginning, Arrival of the Sun. He provided unity and cohesion to the balance between voices and the few but effective instrumental means: two violins, cello, double bass, baroque guitar, and the harpsichord itself. The mere 75 minutes flew by in the blink of an eye, despite an apocryphal and insubstantial libretto and the lack of staging in a work that is more of a “scenic cantata” than an opera. Such is the appeal of the luminous creation by one of the key figures in great Spanish music.
— Beckmesser

Granada International Music and Dance Festival, June 2023

The performance was magnificent: the OCG plays Falla as naturally as breathing, and Zapico knew how to serve the music to the scene with precision, intelligence, and elegance; it was of great beauty and lyrical suspension, without fear of a slow tempo (...)
— Scherzo
Thursday evening was simply historic: superb in both musical and emotional aspects. Baroque music, perfectly conducted by the enormous Aarón Zapico, with an orchestra that sounded uniquely exquisite. The orchestra and the conductor’s gesture were one, making it easier to convey the greatness of the excellent chosen repertoire.
— Granada Hoy
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