Thirty years shared

Auditorio de Galicia © 2021 by Kaif.es

Exactly one year ago, on August 29^th 2025, this series began with an invitation: to pause for a moment and look back.

The Real Filharmonía de Galicia was about to turn thirty. Thirty years of music, but also of people, encounters, memories and voices that deserved to endure. That day, we raised our glasses for the first time.

Since then, we have met again on the 29th of every month. For eleven months, conductors, musicians, soloists, composers and institutional representatives added their voices, one memory at a time, gradually reconstructing three decades of history.

Today, we return to those encounters. This time, to bring them all together in a single glance.

The series Real Filharmonía de Galicia: Three Shared Decades was conceived as a personal initiative, born from one of the orchestra’s own music stands.

After twenty-three years with the Real Filharmonía, I had lived much of its history from within. As the anniversary approached, many of us felt something was missing: a look back. I decided to do something. I chose to write.

I knocked on a few doors.

And the doors opened.

Far more than I had imagined.

On the other side, I found memories, time, trust and a generosity that exceeded all my expectations. That personal initiative was no longer mine alone.

But the life of an institution never stands still.

There are chapters that are still being written. Since 2024, the Real Filharmonía has been writing one of them. The present needs time to become memory. That new chapter may be told one day, when there is enough perspective to do it justice.

Throughout these months, each of those voices contributed a different piece.

Today, in this final instalment, I will allow myself to sketch a few reflections of my own.

The Farewell

If we could now look back over the entire series as if reopening a photo album, we would do so sitting in a comfortable armchair, pausing once again over each of its pages.

Article 1: Helmuth Rilling: The Real Filharmonía’s Opening Bar

We pause a little longer on the first page. It takes us back to the immense privilege of speaking with Helmuth Rilling, founding conductor of the Real Filharmonía. With him, we returned to the first sound of a young orchestra, formed by musicians who had come from different parts of Europe, and to the unique opportunity of building something that did not yet have a past.

Thank you, Maestro. Your voice opened this series. Your memory will remain within it.

H. R.: “It was an immense joy to work with a new ensemble, free from the burdens of tradition.”

Article 2: A Choral Interview with Xerardo Estévez and Xosé Manuel Villanueva

The next page takes us even further back, to a time when the orchestra did not yet exist. With Xerardo Estévez and Xosé Manuel Villanueva, we discovered that before the first sound, there had to be a vision.

Xerardo and Xosé Manuel: that dream you dared to imagine is here today. The Real Filharmonía de Galicia was born as part of that “city project” that sought to open Santiago to the world through culture and restore its European dimension.

Article 3: Before the First Sound / Where an Orchestra Truly Begins

The third chapter brings us to Maximino Zumalave, whose history with the Real Filharmonía began even before its first sound and continued for almost three decades.

M. Z.: “An orchestra is a human instrument. Everything that happens within it has an effect on the sound.”

Thank you, Maximino, for taking care of that human instrument for so many years. And for continuing to see Bach as a contemporary.

Article 4: When Memory Asks for a Future: Frank Peter Zimmermann

Seven programmes and nine concerts over fourteen years connect Frank Peter Zimmermann with the Real Filharmonía. He first performed with the orchestra when it was barely two years old and returned time and again.

During the Christmas season, that article was conceived as a gift to my fellow musicians: to hear his voice again after so many years.

Thank you, Frank Peter, for accepting that invitation.

F. P. Z.: “All the concerts that the Real Filharmonía and I played together will remain deeply in my memory. From our first collaboration and throughout the years, I always had the feeling of rehearsing and creating something special with a musical family.”

And thank you for still wanting to come back.

Article 5: Antoni Ros-Marbà: My Last Artistic Musical Family

Antoni Ros-Marbà devoted twelve years of his life to the Real Filharmonía. Talking with him inevitably meant talking about sound, but also about the time and patience needed to build it.

A. R. M.: “An orchestra needs time: it is like a good wine that needs time to mature. Music is a craft that allows no shortcuts.”

Thank you, Maestro, for those twelve years. And for continuing to call the Real Filharmonía family.

Article 6: In memoriam Maestro Helmuth Rilling (Thirty Years in Many Voices)

At last came the moment that had inspired this entire series: the thirtieth anniversary of the Real Filharmonía. To celebrate it, I prepared an article featuring many voices.

The leading ones had to be those of the musicians themselves, joined by Lucas Alemán, the orchestra’s first concertmaster.

I also wanted to include the institutional dimension, and set myself a challenge I was not sure I could achieve: to reach the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, given the Real Filharmonía’s unique connection with the Ministry.

And the response came: a substantial reflection on the orchestra’s history, its present and its future.

And I had saved something else for the end: the good wishes of our former principal conductors, Helmuth Rilling, Antoni Ros-Marbà and Paul Daniel.

But life changed the plans. Just a few days before the anniversary, Helmuth Rilling passed away. The voice that had opened this series returned at the moment of celebration from a place I had never imagined when preparing that first article: memory.

Thirty voices, different and necessary, gathered for one day in a single choir to sing: happy anniversary, Real Filharmonía de Galicia.

Article 7: Paul Daniel: a decade of listening

With Paul Daniel, the Real Filharmonía dared to explore other ways of being an orchestra. It moved beyond its usual spaces, brought different musical worlds closer together and opened the stage to encounters that until then had seemed almost unimaginable.

P. D.: “We musicians, we have a sort of magic power, to pluck music out of the air around us and channel it in ways that can heal, excite, calm, make emotional sense of the world.”

Thank you, Paul. And I hold on to a phrase I heard you repeat many times: “we can do it.”

Article 8: Five Composers, One Orchestra

J. D.: “The RFG is like a Ferrari: an exceptional precision machine that you cannot entrust to just anyone.”

That is how Juan Durán described the Real Filharmonía. Alongside him came the voices of Fernando Buide, Eduardo Soutullo, Octavio Vázquez and, through his son’s voice, Rogelio Groba.

To all five: it was a privilege to have your music on our music stands. Because part of the heritage that future generations will inherit is being written today.

Article 9: A Unique Figure Within the RFG: The Principal Guest Conductor (2007–2024)

The ninth chapter focused on a different figure: the principal guest conductor. Paul Daniel, Christoph König, Jonathan Webb and Joana Carneiro showed what can happen when a collaboration becomes more than occasional and is given time to grow. You arrived as guests. Over time, Santiago came to feel a little like home.
From those years, Jonathan Webb held on to one particularly special memory: a solo by our co-principal cellist, Barbara Switalska.

J. W.: “I am convinced that in that moment, all our hearts were beating as one.”

Article 10: Recollections from the Podium

We turn another page and return to the podium. Enrico Onofri, Michal Nesterowicz and Manuel Hernández Silva shared very different stories with the Real Filharmonía. But when they spoke about those years, they focused less on the repertoire they had conducted than on the orchestra itself and on what they had experienced with it. And, curiously, the musicians’ smiles surfaced in more than one memory.

What a beautiful image Onofri left us with!

E. O.: “The RFG is one with the magic of Santiago; it is an integral part of its beauty and spirituality.”

Thank you for the marks you have left on our history, from the podium and from the stage.

Article 11: Recollections from the Stage

Some of those marks came precisely from the stage. There we return to Abraham Cupeiro, Pacho Flores and Javier Perianes, three very different artists connected to the Real Filharmonía through projects that became milestones in its history: Os Sons Esquecidos, Cantos y Revueltas and the complete cycle of Beethoven’s piano concertos.

Three very different stories built one encounter at a time. But looking back, all three ended up talking about the people.

Abraham Cupeiro described it in just a few words:

A. C.: “Calidade artística e moita calidade humana.”

With those final words, we close the album.

Let us remain in that armchair for just a little longer.

Final Reflections

I began this series thinking I would come to know the orchestra’s history better.

I ended it understanding something much deeper: that memory, too, needs someone to care for it.

After a year of listening to so many people, some reflections remain.

One of them arises from a paradox: several of the artists who most fondly remember their time with the Real Filharmonía have not collaborated with the orchestra again for years. Lasting relationships between an orchestra and its artists do not happen by chance. They are built and nurtured over time.

At the same time, an orchestra needs to constantly reinvent itself: to discover new performers, composers, perspectives and ways of understanding music. That renewal is essential if orchestra is to remain alive. But an institution that only looks forward risks forgetting who it is; one that only looks back risks becoming a museum. The real challenge lies in finding a balance between the two.

This year has taught me that pausing from time to time to look back is also a way of caring for who we are now.

And if there was one thing that struck me, it was the way such distinguished voices made the initial invitation their own. Internationally renowned artists, former leaders of the orchestra and even a government minister found the time to remember and share fragments of a history that was also theirs.

The response I found outside contrasted with the silence that, to a large extent, greeted the series among those of us who have lived this history from within.

Perhaps closeness makes us take for granted what is part of our everyday lives.

Coda

There are many ways to love an institution. And many ways to celebrate it. This was mine.

Dear reader, let us raise our glasses one last time.

The memory of the Real Filharmonía found a place here.

May it always find its place.