The Noble Knight

Esteemed conductor and pianist Dr. Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez is Artistic Director of Musica Viva NY and Director of Music at the historic Unitarian Church of All Souls in Manhattan. He is also Artistic Director and co-founder of the New Orchestra of Washington, and Artistic Director of the Victoria Bach Festival. He has earned accolades from The Washington Post as a conductor “with the incisive clarity of someone born to the idiom,” as well as praise from The New York Times for leading “a stirring performance” of Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem. At a concert commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the WWI Armistice (featuring the world premiere of Joseph Turrin’s cantata, And Crimson Roses Once Again Be Fair) Oberon’s Grove wrote: “Maestro Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez drew rich, warm sounds from the musicians” in “a beautiful and deeply moving program.” He is featured in El mundo en las manos/Creadores mexicanos en el extranjero (The World in Their Hands/Creative Mexicans Abroad), a book by the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs honoring Mexican nationals who are leading figures in diverse artistic fields. He is the recipient of a 2016 Shenandoah Conservatory Alumni of Excellence Award for his exemplary contribution to his profession, national level of prominence, and exceptional integrity. He resides in New York City.

In 2016, during its 40th anniversary season, Hernandez-Valdez was named the third Artistic Director of the Victoria Bach Festival in Texas. As Mike Greenberg wrote in Classical Voice America: “A big question mark hung over the venerable Victoria Bach Festival two years ago when the brilliant Craig Hella Johnson, its artistic director since 1992, decided to give up the post…Johnson’s successor has replaced the question mark with an exclamation point — perhaps more appropriately, given his Spanish name and Mexican provenance, two exclamation points: ¡Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez!” “The results,” Greenberg continued, “were astonishing.”

Founded in 1977, Musica Viva NY was recently praised by The New York Times as “an excellent chorus.” The ensemble has a longstanding tradition of top-caliber performances, innovative programming, and a strong dedication to the commissioning of new music. Its alumni include Renée Fleming, Samuel Ramey, and Michael Maliakel. Since taking the helm at Musica Viva NY in 2015, Hernandez-Valdez has presented an exceptionally broad and innovative repertoire in each of the choir’s seasons, engaging and inspiring audiences with remarkable interpretations of familiar and new works, and exploring the acoustical capabilities of the historic sanctuary of All Souls Church and other venues on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

As the Artistic Director and co-founder of the New Orchestra of Washington (NOW), a chamber orchestra that “has constituted itself in the forefront of this smaller-is-better movement” (The Washington Post), Hernandez-Valdez has been reimagining for the past ten years what have been the limited definitions of “classical music.” NOW’s innovative programming and creative approach to music performance continues to reshape and enrich the cultural landscape of the National Capital Region.

A passionate advocate of new music, Hernandez-Valdez has commissioned and premiered works by Joan Tower, Arturo Márquez, Joseph Turrin, Gilda Lyons, Seymour Bernstein, Viet Cuong, Juan Pablo Contreras, Elena Ruehr, Ramzi Aburedwan, Jorge Vidales, Mokale Koapeng, Trent Johnson, Javier Farias, Andrés Levell, Zachary Wadsworth, Martin Spruijt, Joel Friedman, and other notable composers.

Hernandez-Valdez’s guest conducting engagements include appearances at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Lincoln Center in New York City, and the historic Degollado Theatre in Guadalajara, Mexico, where he has directed the Jalisco Philharmonic. As a pianist, Hernandez-Valdez performed for the 2013 Britten100 festival in New York City, organized by the Britten-Pears Foundation to honor the 100th anniversary of the titular composer’s birth. As a composer and conductor, he led the premiere of his own composition, The Imaginary City, a cantata inspired by the life of Ramzi Aburedwan, a violist who has opened schools throughout Palestine to teach music to children in refugee camps. He also arranged and premiered the chamber orchestra version of A Song of Nature by Seymour Bernstein. Mr. Bernstein, the subject of Ethan Hawke’s 2014 documentary film, Seymour: An Introduction, is one of Hernandez-Valdez’s most influential teachers and mentors.

Benedict Klöckner, born in 1989, is one of the outstanding artists of his generation. He has won numerous competitions and awards, most recently the OPUS Klassik 2021.

He performs worldwide as a soloist with renowned orchestras such as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London, the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie, the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, the NDR Radiophilharmonie, the MDR-Sinfonieorchester, the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie, the Kremerata Baltica, the Camerata Oslo and the Munich Chamber Orchestra and has worked with renowned conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Christoph Eschenbach, Cristian Măcelaru, Ingo Metzmacher, Michael Sanderling, Clemens Schuldt, Heinrich Schiff and Sir Simon Rattle.

He has appeared in concert halls such as the Berlin Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall New York, Kennedy Center Washington, Symphony Hall Chicago, Arts Center Seoul, Suntory Hall Tokyo, Musikverein Vienna, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Tonhalle Zurich, Gasteig in Munich, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Rudolfinum Prague, Athenaeum Bucharest and the Wigmore Hall London.

In the 2022/2023 season he performed all 6 Bach Suites at the Berlin Philharmonie and the Alte Oper Frankfurt.

2023 he will also make his debut at the Philharmonie Paris and the Kölner Philharmonie and return to Kennedy Center Washington, Festspielhaus Baden- Baden and several times to Philharmonie Berlin. Among others, he will be also on Europe tour with the Romanian Chamber Orchestra conducted by Cristian Măcelaru.

Benedict Kloeckner is a welcome guest at festivals all over the world.

His chamber music partners have included Emanuel Ax, Lisa Batiashvili, Yuri Bashmet, Christoph Eschenbach, Vilde Frang, Gidon Kremer, Anne Sophie Mutter and Sir András Schiff.

Benedict Kloeckner regularly works with the great composers of our time. In 2018 he performed the world premiere of Wolfgang Rihm's Double Concerto for 2 Cellos and Strings. At the Seoul Arts Center, he premiered Eun Hwa Cho's Cello Concerto together with the Korean Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Christoph Poppen. With the Mozarteum Orchestra under Peter Tilling, he also gave the Austrian premiere of Dai Fujikura's Cello Concerto in Salzburg. 2024 he will premiere a new cello concerto by Bongani Ndodana-Breen together with the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra.

His CD recordings have been highly praised by the international press and won prizes such as the OPUS Klassik award and the Supersonic Award, among others.

His recordings were made in collaboration with artists such as Gidon Kremer, the conductors Heinrich Schiff and Michael Sanderling , the pianists and the composer Wolfgang Rihm. Most recently in 2023, he released a CD with Brahms Cello Sonatas with YU Kosuge on Sony.

Since 2014, Benedict Kloeckner has been also the founder and artistic director of the "International Music Festival Koblenz" IMUKO.

Benedict Kloeckner received his artistic education from Martin Ostertag at the Karlsruhe University of Music and from Frans Helmerson and Gary Hoffman at the Kronberg Academy, made possible by the Angela Winkler Scholarship. He received important impulses and valuable support for his artistic development from Gidon Kremer, Steven Isserlis, Michael Sanderling and Sir András Schiff.

Benedict Kloeckner plays the “Ex Maurice Gendron” cello by Francesco Ruggeri (1680), a generous loan.

José Elizondo is a multifaceted Mexican composer. He received a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, as well as a degree in Humanities and Music, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). At Harvard University, José studied music analysis, as well as choir and orchestra conducting.

In the field of technology, Jose works as a Senior Principal Engineer in a company that specializes in artificial intelligence technology and speech recognition technology systems.

As a composer, Jose writes chamber and orchestral music in a style that is lyrical and expressive, often drawing inspiration from Latin American folk music. Performers of Elizondo's works include distinguished artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, James Buswell, Benedict Klöckner, Allison Eldredge, Andrei Ioniță, Sébastien Hurtaud, Maximilian Hornung, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Yury Revich and Mikhail Pochekin, as well as more than 250 orchestras, such as the Malaysian Philharmonic, the Houston Symphony, the Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de México, and the Czech National Symphony.

His most recent compositions include "Cherry Blossoms", premiered by Benedict Klöckner, Clémence de Forceville and Anna Fedorova, as well as "Cantabrigian Reflections", which will be premiered by maestros Yo-Yo Ma and Carlos Prieto.

Violin I
Hanbing Jia
Amyr Joyner
Debo Katz

Violin II
Chae Yeom
Amelia Giles

Viola
Erika Gray
Dan Zhang

Cello
Ben Capps
Susanna Mendlow

Double Bass
Patrick Raynard