Real Filharmonía de Galicia © RFG
Today we raise a glass once again — for the ninth time, to be precise — in honour of the Real Filharmonía de Galicia as it celebrates thirty years of history. Thirty years of concerts, conductors, soloists, tours, recordings, changes, discoveries, and also of human connections built around music.
And when looking back, one particular role emerges — one that, for fifteen years, became a fundamental part of the artistic life of the orchestra: that of the Principal Guest Conductor.
Although the role of Principal Guest Conductor had already existed previously at the RFG during the period of Maximino , from the mid-2000s onwards a new way of understanding that role within the artistic life of the orchestra would begin to emerge.
As many of you already know, the life of a symphony orchestra does not revolve solely around its Principal Conductor. Each season is also shaped by the constant arrival of guest conductors, bringing new energies, repertoire and different ways of making music.
But within that usual structure, the Principal Guest Conductor occupies a somewhat different place. The role does not involve arriving for just a single isolated week: the conductor returns several times each season, participates more continuously in the artistic development of the orchestra’s sound, and gradually builds a much deeper relationship with both the orchestra and its audience.
And it was within that new stage that the collaborations of , , and with the RFG would acquire a particularly meaningful continuity.
And to understand how this new stage began, we must return for a moment to the 2002–2003 season.
At that time, the Real Filharmonía de Galicia was still a very young orchestra — barely seven years old — but already going through a period of remarkable artistic growth. Under the direction of Antoni , the orchestra was beginning to shape a very distinctive artistic identity, especially within the Classical repertoire, gradually becoming one of Spain’s reference orchestras for this style of interpretation.
During those years, the RFG undertook one of the major projects of its early history: a complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies, promoted by Ros-Marbà.
And it was precisely after those years so strongly shaped by Beethoven that, in 2005, Paul Daniel first appeared as a guest conductor, conducting Beethoven’s First Symphony. The second encounter would come shortly afterwards, this time in an extraordinary out-of-season concert alongside , where Paul Daniel once again conducted the First Symphony. Many musicians still remember that concert today as a true artistic and human explosion within the orchestra. It felt as though an entirely new window had suddenly opened in the sound and energy of the RFG.
Sometimes artistic contrasts work almost like a shock of light. Like black and white. And what is fascinating is that they do not necessarily appear because something is missing. Sometimes one can feel completely identified with a certain way of working, making music, understanding an orchestra… until someone arrives and reveals another possible way of living all of this. Not better. Not worse. Simply different. And suddenly both worlds begin to coexist.
The artistic and human connection that began to emerge led the orchestra’s technical director at the time, , together with Antoni Ros-Marbà, to start considering the possibility of giving continuity to this kind of musical relationship within the orchestra.
Behind this idea there was also a very concrete reflection about the artistic growth of an orchestra itself. As Oriol Roch once told us, the role of Principal Guest Conductor was beginning to be understood as
a sort of counterbalance for the musicians: the possibility of living continuously alongside two different ways of making and understanding music.
The intention was not to replace the artistic identity of the Principal Conductor, but rather to complement it. To create a space where the orchestra could also breathe different energies, different ways of shaping sound, working on repertoire and relating to music — but with enough continuity for that relationship to develop in a meaningful way over time.
For this reason, the idea was that the Principal Guest Conductor would return for at least three or four weeks each season.
That idea would officially materialize with the appointment of Paul Daniel as Principal Guest Conductor of the Real Filharmonía de Galicia.
Looking back today on that role, Paul describes it as a very special opportunity to build a deeper relationship with both the orchestra and the audience, but without the weight of carrying an entire season on one’s shoulders.
So really a kind of responsibility without the responsibility!! [he says laughing].
For me, it’s not a ‘carte Blanche’ — you’re being invited to join the kitchen of the chief chef, and your job as invitado is to bring ideas, suggest tastes to add to the menu, but under the vision of the chief.
And perhaps one of the most interesting reflections appears when he speaks about the importance of difference inside an orchestra:
When I saw how the musicians of our orchestra chose their invitados in my time, I could see that they wanted something different from the boss! A different approach, a different kind of music making: and all that is very refreshing for the project.
Or, as he himself summarizes it with football humor:
It’s like choosing a new player for the football team - he/she joins the team and fits in with the manager’s system, but everyone wants to see the new moves he/she can create on the pitch.
After one season without a Principal Guest Conductor, the role would return with the appointment of the German conductor Christoph König.
When I ask him today how he remembers the orchestra in those years, the first words he uses are very revealing: “willingness”, “flexibility”, “adaptability”. He speaks about an orchestra “in very good shape, highly professional, but also especially open.”
There was always a welcoming touch, [he recalls].
And perhaps there is something even more beautiful in the way he describes that relationship:
the feeling of being truly listened to. Arriving at rehearsal and noticing that the orchestra was open to trying things, to building, to taking seriously what I was proposing from the podium.
And then, almost without pausing, he continues:
With very few orchestras does this feeling of truly being at ease really exist.
But König also introduces a very suggestive reflection on the delicate balance between continuity and change inside an orchestra. For him, working with different conductors can bring new energies and perspectives to an orchestra, although he also believes that a deep artistic identity needs time to develop.
He remembers especially intense and personal programs, ranging from Mahler and Sibelius to less familiar works such as e’s Concerto Grosso No. 3 performed in Santiago in 2011 together with Gregori and Nikolai , principal and co-principal of the orchestra’s second violins.
And perhaps one of the images that best reflects that relationship appears precisely outside the usual protocol of the concert itself. König remembers that, during one of those encounters, he ended up sitting at the piano to improvise a small jazz session together with Nikolai Velikov. These are small moments, perhaps invisible to the audience, but they say a great deal about the kind of bond that begins to grow when a collaboration stops being occasional and becomes something shared naturally, with trust and musical complicity.
When he speaks today about the RFG, there is no trace of bitterness. Rather, a certain quiet nostalgia.
I love the Real Filharmonía very much,
he says smiling. And he adds that he would have loved to see the orchestra again over the years, precisely because very few times has he felt such a natural, open and human connection within a symphony orchestra.
After the period of Christoph König, Jonathan Webb would assume the role of Principal Guest Conductor. And here it is worth recalling a reflection by Paul Daniel, already Principal Conductor of the RFG at the time:
I’ve always made it the musicians’ own choice in all the orchestras and opera companies where I’ve been MD.
And indeed, it was the musicians of the orchestra who chose Webb for this position.
Jonathan already knew the orchestra very well before officially assuming the role. In fact, he recalls that his first encounter with the RFG took place in 2007, during a performance of Mozart’s Il re pastore at the Festival Mozart in A Coruña. Among the memories from that period are also several tours across Spain with the RFG, including one especially remembered in 2014 through Pamplona, Santander and Burgos.
When I ask him what being a Principal Guest Conductor really means, his answer constantly revolves around one idea: trust.
When one goes to an orchestra as a guest conductor, I’m sure my colleagues would agree with me when I say that if after the first occasion, the orchestra invites you to work with them again, this is a confirmation that something positive has happened.
But for Webb, the real difference appears precisely in continuity. While a guest conductor may return only once in a season — and perhaps not even every season — the Principal Guest Conductor returns regularly throughout the years. And that completely transforms the relationship.
This gives one an opportunity to work with the orchestra more intimately and as the relationship develops, to choose repertoire which might encourage a certain approach to playing and thinking about music.
Even so, he insists that he always understood this role as working alongside the Principal Conductor and supporting the broader artistic vision of the institution.
And perhaps one of the most beautiful things in his words is the way he emotionally describes his arrival in Santiago.
During my tenure in Santiago, I felt as if I was coming home each time.
He speaks about the itinerant life of conductors, of hotels, airports and cities that eventually begin to blur into one another. And precisely because of that, he explains, there are places that end up becoming something different:
The warmth that I felt from the orchestra and the subsequent invitation to work with the musicians regularly made Santiago one of those places where I felt more of an insider than an intruder; a pilgrim rather than a tourist maybe!
The image could hardly feel more compostelano.
During those years, Webb conducted numerous concerts with the RFG both inside and outside Galicia. And although he admits that he increasingly dislikes the toils of travel, he remembers especially fondly the tours with the orchestra and that shared sense of responsibility when an orchestra represents its identity away from home.
But the deepest memory he keeps has nothing to do with great triumphs or spectacular programs. It has to do with a single moment.
During a performance of the Janáček Suite for Strings, in the fifth movement, a cello solo appeared which Webb still remembers with emotion today. And, almost like a final confidence written in the margin of the email, he ends up revealing that the cellist was Barbara , co-principal of the RFG cello section:
It was played so breathtakingly beautifully that time stood still.
And then he adds one of the most moving reflections of this entire series of conversations:
I am convinced that in that moment, all our hearts were beating as one.
For Webb, this is precisely where the deepest essence of music resides: those small and impossible-to-predict moments in which an orchestra, a conductor and the audience stop being separate individuals and share one unrepeatable emotion.
Up to the present day, the most recent Principal Guest Conductor of the Real Filharmonía de Galicia has been the Portuguese conductor Joana Carneiro, appointed in 2020.
Looking back today on that period, she describes the role through ideas of connection, continuity and shared artistic growth:
It is different in the way that we connect more with the orchestra, in creating a long-term artistic relationship, in sound and programming.
And when speaking about what the collaboration with the RFG meant to her personally, her words carry an unmistakable warmth:
It really allowed me to grow as a musician. I found RFG a beautiful, welcoming group of musicians who always wanted to achieve greatness. That was inspiring.
Among the projects of those years, one seems to remain especially close to her. In 2024, she conducted together with the RFG La Passion de Simone by Kaija , presented in Santiago alongside the Asociación de Amigos de la Ópera and becoming the Spanish premiere of the work.
Perhaps the last one, La Passion de Simone, as it was my farewell to the orchestra as Principal Guest Conductor, the composer of the piece Kaija Saariaho had just passed away and the composer’s husband was there. It was very special.
The words that ended our conversation perhaps summarised better than anything else the kind of relationship she came to build with the orchestra:
I miss the orchestra greatly.
For a moment, it no longer sounded like an interview, but like a farewell.
After that sentence, the article itself almost seemed to fall silent.
Nothing else really needed to be said after that.
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