Together with Ballets de Tenerife and the Conservatory children’s choir, the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra once more created a magical concert with an audience of 16,000
Boluda Shipping provided 24 containers for stage design
Tenerife once again celebrated Christmas day with a cultural gift that Boluda Corporación Marítima has been sponsoring for 26 years, organized by the Port Authority of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
The special Christmas concert was performed in spring-like weather to a full house and further raised the bar with dance as a new element provided by Ballets de Tenerife, in an event that stretched beyond its undeniable national appeal to create significant international impact.
More than 16,000 people attended the packed venue organised by Puertos de Tenerife in Los Llanos quay, with a stage constructed using 24 containers provided by the maritime corporation’s international freight logistics and transport division Boluda Shipping.
Five hundred spectators watched the concert on a big screen set up in the Plaza de La Candelaria. Counting also Spanish national channel RTVE live radio and television broadcast, and live streaming on Boluda’s Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/boludacorporacionmaritima/, the concert had a potential audience of 420 million worldwide. There were 120 artists on stage during the show: 82 musicians from the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra, eight Tenerife Ballet dancers and 30 singers from the Santa Cruz Conservatory children’s choir.
Under the motto “Dances of Europe”, the concert made a musical tour of the old continent with works by Strauss, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Falla and Rossini. The Symphony of Tenerife, directed by conductor Antonio Méndez, began promptly with El barón gitano, by Johann Strauss II, composer of the first three concert pieces. With Tik Tak, Polka Schnell, op. 365 and Ritter Pázmán op. 441, the Symphony completed its voyage through Austrian music history.
Ballets de Tenerife
Under the direction of choreographer Héctor Navarro, ballerinas from Ballets de Tenerife performed in the Christmas concert for the first time, with the Hungarian Dance No. 1 by Johannes Brahms marking the beginning of this Central European tour.
With almost no pause for well-deserved applause, the passionate Polonaise by Tchaikovsky was followed by the frenetic Slavic Dance No. 7, op. 72 by Antonin Dvorak. The expressive power of dance filled the stage with the Valse triste, op. 44 by Jean Sibelius. The four pairs of young dancers thrilled the audience with an emotive waltz against a blue backdrop. This began a musical journey through Scandinavia, which continued with the brief Swedish Dances Nº7, op. 63, by Max Bruch.
The Tenerife Symphony Orchestra (OST) closed its faultless repertoire of Northern European music with Norwegian Dance Nº3, op. 35 by Edvard Grieg, set against a projection of Scandinavian landscapes on the big screen.
The Ballets de Tenerife dancers returned to the spotlight with English Dance No. 6, op.33 by Malcolm Arnold, which opened a lively musical journey through France, the United Kingdom and Germany.
A tour through Spain via the dance from La Vida Breve by Manuel de Falla was the farewell dance from the ballerinas who closed the evening to great applause with a vivid and sensuous performance.
The Pasodoble Islas Canarias by Catalan composer Josep María Tarridas was an essential addition to the program. And just as the audience began to ask about the whereabouts of the also programmed Santa Cruz de Tenerife Professional Music Conservatory Children’s Choir, directed by Juan Ramón Vinagre, the encores began. Musicians dressed up in Christmas hats and headbands greeted the choir boys and girls who sang Lo divino and Una sobre el mismo mar by Benito Cabrera, with the chorus adapted to include the eighth Canary Island, La Graciosa.
