TM The King and Queen, accompanied by TRH The Princess of Asturias and the Infanta Sofía of Spain, are to preside over the 33rd Princess of Asturias Awards Concert

Their Majesties The King and Queen, accompanied by Their Royal Highnesses The Princess of Asturias and Infanta Sofía, are to preside over the 33rd Princess of Asturias Awards Concert titled “Brahms and Dvořák. Grandmasters of the 19th century”. Organized by the Princess of Asturias Foundation in collaboration with the Cajastur Foundation, the concert will commence at 7:00pm on Thursday 23rd October at the Prince Felipe Auditorium in Oviedo.

The Foundation Choir, along with the Oviedo Filarmonía Orchestra, will perform the pieces Tragic Overture in D minor, Op. 81 and Song of Destiny, Op. 54 by Johannes Brahms; as well as Slavonic Dances, Op. 46, No. 7 in C minor and Te Deum, Op. 103, by Antonín Dvořák. Conducted by Lucas Macías, the concert will also feature soprano Juliane Banse and bass-baritone Marko Mimica. 

The final rehearsal, which will be open to the public, will take place at 8:00pm on Wednesday 22nd October, for which the Foundation has made 1200 free tickets available.

 

Lucas Macías

Principal Conductor of the Oviedo Filarmonía since 2018 and Artistic Director of the Granada City Orchestra since 2020, this season sees his debut as principal conductor of the Royal Symphony Orchestra of Seville. He began his musical studies at the age of nine and was later accepted into Heinz Holliger’s oboe class at the University of Freiburg. He continued his training at the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic and in Geneva with Maurice Bourgue. This set the stage for his career as a solo musician, during which he performed with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. He was also a founding member of the Orchestra Mozart led by Claudio Abbado, who aided him in acquiring a profound knowledge and understanding of both chamber and symphonic repertoire. 

As a conductor, he trained with Mark Stringer at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. In previous seasons, he has conducted the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, the Paris Orchestra –where he was assistant conductor to Daniel Harding–, the Geneva Chamber Orchestra, the Saxon State Orchestra Dresden, the Buenos Aires Philharmonic, the Het Gelders Orkest, the Symphony Orchestra of Galicia, the Liceu Symphony Orchestra and the Basque National Orchestra. During the 2025-2026 season, he will once again conduct the Galicia Symphony Orchestra and the Navarra Symphony Orchestra. In the operatic field, he has conducted Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute at the Oviedo Opera House, Donizetti’s The Daughter of the Regiment at the Donostiarra Musical Fortnight and Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, with Carlos Álvarez, at the Teatro Cervantes in Málaga, projects in which he worked with singers of the stature of Sondra Radvanovsky, Piotr Beczala, Ermonela Jaho and Javier Camarena. He has won several first prizes, including the 2006 Sony Music Foundation Tokyo International Oboe Competition.

 

Juliane Banse (soprano) *

Born in southern Germany and raised in Zurich, she studied with Paul Steiner and later with Ruth Rohner at the Zurich Opera, completing her studies with Brigitte Fassbaender and Daphne Evangelatos in Munich. Her opera roles range from Feldmarschallin (Der Rosenkavalier), the Contessa (The Marriage of Figaro), Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Vitellia (La clemenza di Tito), Leonore (Fidelio) and Arabella (in the work of the same name) through to Grete (Der ferne Klang). She gained recognition as an artist at the age of twenty as Pamina (The Magic Flute) at the Berlin Comic Opera, in a production by Harry Kupfer.

She boasts a wide-ranging concert repertoire, which has led her to work with renowned conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Chailly, Bernard Haitink, Franz Welser-Möst, Marin Alsop, Zubin Mehta and Manfred Honeck. More recently, Manfred Trojahn wrote the chamber version of his play 4 Women from Shakespeare for her voice. In 2022, she performed Heinz Holliger’s works Dämmerlicht and Puneigä. She recently performed the title role in a reprise of Joan of Arc by Walter Braunfels in Cologne, and in the world premiere of Heinz Holliger’s opera Lunea in Zurich. Her more noteworthy performances include the title roles in Dutch composer Willem Jeths’ monodrama The Tell-Tale Heart at the Concertgebouw; Grigori Frid’s The Diary of Anne Frank at the Theater an der Wien; Francis Poulenc’s The Human Voice at the Berlin State Opera and the Cologne Opera; and Elsa von Brabant in Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin in Nantes and Anger. Not to forget her performance at the Zurich Opera as Snow White in the world premiere of Heinz Holliger’s opera of the same name. In the United States, she recently performed the role of Rosalinde (The Bat) in Chicago and as Zdenka (Arabella) at the MET in New York. In the 2025-2026 season, she will perform Gertrud from Hänsel and Gretel, Kathinka (The Bartered Bride), and Marcellina (The Marriage of Figaro) at the Bavarian State Opera. At the 33rd Princess of Asturias Awards Concert, she will perform Antonín Dvořák’s Te Deum under the baton of Lucas Macías.

She has received the Echo Klassik Award for her recording of Braunfels’ Joan of Arc with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Manfred Honeck, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, conducted by David Zinman. In February 2017, her CD Unanswered Love was released to great acclaim. It features works by Reimann, Rihm and Henze, some of which were recorded for the first time and dedicated to her, and which she published with the German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern and Christoph Poppen. With the Munich Radio Orchestra, she recorded the CD Im Arm der Liebe comprising works by Braunfels, Korngold, Marx and Pfitzner. Together with Martin Helmchen, she has released Hindemith's Marienleben on CD. Other projects in recent seasons include Holliger’s Lunea and Hindemith’s Cardillac.
 

Marko Mimica (bass-baritone) *

Croatian bass-baritone Marko Mimica graduated from the Zagreb Music Academy in 2011, the year that saw the launch of his international career. He has worked with conductors such as Gianandrea Noseda, Donald Runnicles, Michele Mariotti, Roberto Abbado and Enrique Mazzola, and with stage directors such as Robert Carsen, Claus Guth, Calixto Bieito and Damiano Michieletto. In the 2024-2025 season, he made his debut at Berlin’s State Opera in Simon Boccanegra, premiered the new production of Macbeth at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, sang in I Lombardi at the Teatro Real in Madrid, and premiered the new production of Calisto Bieito’s Zelmira at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro. 

He has performed at venues such as the Royal Opera House in London, the Vienna State Opera, the Opéra de Paris, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris and the Teatro Real in Madrid. The 2025-2026 season will see his debut at the Lyon Opera House in the four diabolical roles from The Tales of Hoffmann, in Damiano Michieletto’s production with Emmanuel Villaume as musical director. He will return to the Wallonie Royal Opera House as Alfonso d’Este in Lucrezia Borgia, in a production by Jean-Louis Grinda with Giampaolo Bisanti conducting the orchestra. At the Teatro Real in Madrid, he will perform Ferrando in Il trovatore under the baton of Nicola Luisotti, while at the Rome Opera House he will perform Colline in La Bohème, with stage direction by Davide Livermore and musical direction by Jader Bignamini. He will make his debut as Assur at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona in a concert version of Semiramide and will reprise the role of King Marke in Tristan und Isolde at the Teatro Cervantes in Málaga, in a production by Alex Aguilera. In the symphonic field, he is to perform with the Slovak Philharmonic in Bratislava and will tour Spain, offering concerts in Madrid, Zaragoza and Alicante. He will perform Verdi’s Requiem at the Palau de la Música in Valencia with the Region of Valencia Orchestra. At the 33rd Princess of Asturias Awards Concert, he will perform Antonín Dvořák’s Te Deum.
 

Princess of Asturias Foundation Choir

In keeping with the traditional love of Asturians for choral music, the Princess of Asturias Foundation established a polyphonic ensemble in 1983 with the aim of elevating its performance to the highest of levels. Conducted by José Esteban García Miranda since 1989, the Princess of Asturias Foundation Choir is considered an outstanding amateur ensemble that enjoys recognized prestige on the international scene. 

In December 2007, the European Parliament distinguished the Choir via an extraordinary acknowledgement “for its outstanding services to the European Union”. Throughout its history, it has also been conducted by Luis Gutiérrez Arias, Sabas Calvillo, Víctor Pablo Pérez and Luis Vila. Jesús López Cobos, 1981 Prince of Asturias Laureate for the Arts, was joint honorary conductor of the Choir until his death in 2018, along with Krzysztof Penderecki, who died in 2020 and who received the same award in 2001.  The Choir has toured Europe, America and the Middle East. In Europe, it has performed in France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Poland, Russia, the UK, Greece and Portugal. It has also performed in Jerusalem, Tampa (Florida), Washington, New York –in St Patrick’s Cathedral and at the Lincoln Center– on the occasion of Columbus Day, in São Paulo, Mexico City and Bogotá. Furthermore, in 2004 it was invited to participate at the marriage of Their Majesties King Felipe and Queen Letizia, performing during the traditional offering of the bride’s bouquet to the Virgin in the Royal Basilica of Our Lady of Atocha. 

It has also performed Cherubini’s Requiem in C minor alongside the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Riccardo Muti, 2011 Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts; excerpts from Richard Wagner’s opera Parsifal alongside the orchestra and soloists of the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, conducted by the institution’s artistic and general director Valery Gergiev; The Dream of Gerontis, Op. 38 by Edward Elgar, conducted by Rossen Milanov, and Symphony No.No. 9 by Beethoven, and Ivan the Terrible, by Sergei Prokofiev, conducted by Pedro Amaral and Mykola Dyadyura, respectively. Since its inception, the Princess of Asturias Foundation Choir has been conducted by other outstanding maestros such as Marcus Creed, Friedrich Haider, Ros Marbá, Peter Maag, John Neschling, Yuri Bashmet, Alberto Zedda, Paul Mann, Jesús López Cobos, Krzysztof Penderecki, Gustavo Dudamel, Sir Neville Marriner, Marzio Conti, Rossen Milanov, Juanjo Mena and Jonathan Webb. It has also collaborated with the Symphony Orchestra of the State of São Paulo; the Vienna Sinfonietta Classical Orchestra; the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, belonging to the National Network of Youth and Children’s Orchestras of Venezuela (2008 Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts); and the Philharmonic Orchestra of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), 2009 Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities, among others. In 2022, the Choir accompanied the Asturian musician Víctor Manuel at four symphonic concerts, on the occasion of his 75th anniversary tour, which included a performance at the WiZink Center in Madrid before more than eight thousand people.
 

Oviedo Filarmonía *

The Oviedo Filarmonía came into being as the City of Oviedo Symphony Orchestra in February 1999 at the initiative of the Asturian capital’s City Council to meet the needs of the new musical activities that were taking shape in the city and which today constitute one of its major hallmarks. The orchestra celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2024, for which it was awarded the Silver Medal of Oviedo. Among the highlights of the current season is its forthcoming appearance next April at the Royal Opera House Muscat (Oman), where it will perform Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, as well as a symphonic programme.  The main ensemble of the Oviedo Spanish Lyric Theatre Festival, the Campoamor Theatre Dance Festival and the Luis G. Iberni Auditorium Concert and Piano Workshop series, the Oviedo Filarmonía is also present in three of the five operas comprising the Oviedo Opera House season. It likewise boasts an intense programme of activities that includes its traditional school concerts and the open-air summer series at the University of Oviedo, as well as film screenings with live soundtracks and performances in venues such as the Carlos Tartiere football stadium and the Cathedral Square. In recent years, both the close relationship it maintains with the public as well as its social facet have been strengthened via streaming concerts, new educational projects and charity concerts. Throughout its history, the Oviedo Filarmonía has accompanied prestigious soloists such as Edita Gruberová, Juan Diego Flórez, Pretty Yende, Mischa Maisky, Elina Garança, Bryn Terfel, Michael Fabiano, Midori, Javier Camarena, Ermonela Jaho and Benjamin Bernheim, among many others, and has performed a wide-ranging repertoire under the baton of conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Alberto Zedda, Shi-Yeon Sung and Joana Carneiro, to name but a few.

From 2004 to 2011, its principal conductor was Friedrich Haider, with whom the orchestra made the leap onto the international scene with a tour of Japan and concerts in Paris. Between 2011 and 2017, the orchestra strengthened its links with the city under the baton of Marzio Conti, reaching out to a variety of audiences. Its current principal director is Lucas Macías. The Oviedo Filarmonía has recorded for several labels, such as Farao Classics, Philartis, Naxos, Eudora Records and Warner Classics International, and has been a member of the Spanish Association of Symphony Orchestras (Spanish acronym, AEOS) since 2003.