Magdalena Tsanis I Madrid/Granada, (EFE).- At just 20 years old, the Granada-born violinist María Dueñas is already music history: she has just won the Princess Girona Award for the Arts and has signed an exclusive contract with the Deutsche Grammophon record label , something that only a few Spanish artists have achieved, such as Montserrat Caballé or Plácido Domingo.
“I feel responsible for promoting classical music and making it accessible to all generations,” he told EFE this Friday, a few hours after his performance at the Teatro Monumental with the RTVE Symphony Orchestra conducted by Joshua Weilerstein.
His first album, “Beethoven and beyond”, recorded with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and Manfred Honeck at the Wiener Musikverein, will be released on May 5 and is an interpretation of Beethoven’s violin concerto that includes cadenzas written by the Duenas own
María Dueñas discovers classical music through her father
“For a musician it is important to have an open mind and to be interested not only in the instrument that one plays, but to open up to other fields, as in my case it is composition”, he affirms.
Born in Granada in 2002, Dueñas discovered classical music as a child thanks to the recordings her parents listened to at home and the concerts she attended. She started playing the violin at the age of 6 and enrolled in the Granada Conservatory a year later.
He gave his first concert at the age of 11 in the Manuel de Falla auditorium in Granada and from that day he remembers a feeling of “very great enrichment”.
“On stage it’s not just you, there are other musicians behind it and it’s a communication process, it’s about reaching a common idea about a work, it’s very interesting and that’s why every time I work with a new director and orchestra I learn very much, each person has a different conception of the same work”.
After winning a series of international competitions, especially the Yehudi Menuhin in 2021, the invitations to collaborate with the most important orchestras in the world skyrocketed, he has played with the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Oslo Philharmonic, the Russian National or the Philharmonic of Los Angeles, among many others.
The interpreter recognizes that to travel that path something more than a great technical preparation is required. “There is also psychological work to be there one hundred percent and to prepare the programs in a tight time frame, you have to have very strong nerves.”
Backstage work award
For some time he has lived in Vienna where he studies at the University of Music and Art with Boris Kuschnir. “I always say that I have two lives: the student life and the life traveling and playing concerts”, points out María Dueñas.
Regarding the Princess of Girona Award that she has just received, she says she is very excited because it represents support “for all the work that goes on behind the scenes” and recognition of classical music in general. “This goes far beyond playing the violin, you also have to research a lot about the work and the composer”, she explains.
“Each work has a story behind it and getting to know it gives you a different perspective on how to deal with it,” he adds.
Asked about references, she mentions that she grew up listening to “the old generations” and that the recordings of Oistrakh and Heifet have remained embedded in her mind, but that each person with whom she collaborates at all times inspires her.
He faces the stage naturally, without mania. “Before going out I like to be in contact with the violin, to be playing until the last minute to feel the work very internalized and when I go on stage the most important thing is to enjoy, get in touch with the public through music and enjoy the moment” . EFE