Paco Rubio

Department of Early Music

frubio@esmuc.cat

Improvisació i ornamentació de la MA per a altres àmbits
Improvisació i ornamentació I
Improvisació i ornamentació II
Improvisació i ornamentació III
Improvisació i ornamentació IV

Paco Rubio

DNESM diploma at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Lyon in Jean-Pierre Canihac’s class. Founding member of Ministriles de Marsias and cornett instructor at the Daroca Course.

Education

Paco Rubio is a cornetist. He began his musical studies in Hellín (Albacete) with teachers Miguel Picazo Quintanilla and Gregorio García Ruiz. Later, he left philology to dedicate himself to music. Facing the impossibility of studying his instrument in Spain (except for some summer courses), he crossed the Pyrenees to obtain, in 1996, the Diplôme National d'Etudes Supérieures Musicales (DNESM) at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et Danse in Lyon (France), under the tutelage of Jean Pierre Canihac, the maestro who later initiated the cornett class at the Department of Early Music at ESMUC. Paco Rubio holds a Master's Degree in Performance of Early Music (MIMA) from ESMUC and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), with a dissertation on glosa.

Concerts

He has played with many of the most prominent early music groups, among which we mention only two here, those who were fundamental to the cornettist's training: Les Sacqueboutiers, his maestro’s group, among the foreign ones, and the now defunct SEMA, led by Pepe Rey, among those in Spain. He has performed recitals alongside organists Javier Artigas, Esteban Landart, José Luis González Uriol, or Claudio Astronio, and has participated in orchestras that required the cornett ( cornetto). He has been requested, for example, in Monteverdi's operas, where his extended stays alongside Christophe Rousset at the Amsterdam Opera stand out. He has premiered contemporary music works that included the cornett, by Gabriel Erkoreka, Joaquín Rodrigo, David Padrós, or Manuel Seco de Arpe.

In 1997, he founded alongside bassoonist Fernando Sánchez and the aforementioned organist Javier Artigas, the ensemble Ministriles de Marsias, to which Paco Rubio has devoted a significant part of his time, in addition to his pedagogical work. Among the group's programmes performed in Spain, Europe, and America, noteworthy are "Desio di sguardi" (2000); originally with soprano Marta Almajano and later with Erica Escribá-Astaburuaga, focusing on the human voice and its imitators (cornett, sackbut, and bassoon). The program includes the translation into Spanish of the original Italian poems sung, done by Paco Rubio himself. Other programmes include ; Über dieser Fuge … (2002), cantered around Bach's Art of Fugue and Italian-influenced German music (Schmelzer, Rosenmüller, Fux), featuring a typical wind ensemble from the court of Krömeritz (violin, cornett, sackbut, bassoon, and continuo); Tres pueri (2007), showcasing virtuoso music for three cornetts (Jean Pierre Canihac, Paco Rubio, and Lluís Coll), and continuo; as well as "Les festes de Sant Marc de Venècia al temps de Giovanni Gabrieli" (2008), designed for the typical Italian cori spezzati of violins and/or cornetts and sackbuts, a collaborative project with Les Sacqueboutiers.

However, it is in this realm of Spanish music and the development of the Ministriles ensemble, that this mixture of reeds (that are the foundation of the ensemble: shawms, bassoons, and dulcians) and mouthpieces (ornaments: cornetts and sackbuts), so characteristic among all the Iberian lands and later exported to America, where Ministriles de Marsias has established itself as a reference group. Programmes such as "Trazos de los Ministriles" and "Batalla de Tientos" stand out. In 2010, during the celebration of the fifth centenary of the birth of the great Antonio de Cabezón, Ministriles de Marsias dedicated numerous monographic programs to him, with 4, 5, or 6 minstrels, always featuring Javier Artigas as the organist. They also performed a series of concerts with the Schola Antiqua, directed by Juan Carlos Asensio, focusing on the practice of alternating plainchant with instrumental organ and minstrel interludes, a common practice in Spanish chapels, where the instrumental part, within the alternatim, was also music by Cabezón. Additionally, the group can include singers to complete the formation of the ancient chapels. Thus, Paco Rubio has directed programs of Spanish polyphonic music (polyphonists from the time of the Catholic Monarchs -Escobar, Peñalosa- and, above all, Tomás Luis de Victoria: "Misa pro Victoria"since 2011), at Ministriles de Marsias, in collaboration with the Schola Antiqua for the plainchant, in major cathedrals (León, Toledo, Seville, Cuenca, or Ciudad Rodrigo -on the occasion of the exhibition Las Edades del Hombrein 2006-), or in concert halls, such as the Auditorio Nacional de Madrid. Ministriles de Marsias has been recognised several times (in 2015, 2017, and 2019) by the association GEMA, which represents Spanish early music groups, as the best Spanish group specialising in Renaissance music.

Recordings

While in France, Paco Rubio formed, along with his conservatory colleagues, the ensemble of cornetts and sackbuts La Moranda, which had a short life but participated in the recording, for Stradivarius, of the complete works of Antonio de Cabezón alongside Claudio Astronio. This collection was later reissued by Brilliant Classics in a set of seven CDs. On his own, Ministriles de Marsias is reluctant to record. Nevertheless, the group has a few recordings, including collaborations with the Capilla Peñaflorida, conducted by Josep Cabré. Two of their most notable albums are "Trazos de los Ministriles"their most requested program, which was eventually released on CD (REF.: NB017; EAN 13: 8437008206172) and won the "Reader's Award for the Best Renaissance Music Album of the Year 2010" given by CD Compact magazine. The album received overwhelming praise from critics: from Andrés Ruiz Tarazona in Diverdi, who called it an "exemplary recording, from the graceful performance to Paco Rubio's excellent notes, a true essay on the subject," to Eduardo Torrico in the aforementioned CD Compact ("one of the best recordings ever made with Renaissance instrumental music, a recording to be listened to a thousand times without ever getting tired of it"); additionally, Bruno Turner personally congratulated them ("I listened to your CD with great pleasure. Thank you very much. You play with a great sense of balance, fine tuning, and a truly good ensemble. I love your authentic and tasteful choice of instruments…"). On the other hand, the many programs that the group dedicated to Antonio de Cabezón resulted in the double CD "Invenciones de Glosas de Antonio de Cabezón" (REF: NB024; EAN 13: 8437008206240), which won the "Award of the Spanish Association of Classical Music Festivals (Festclásica) for the best recovery and interpretation of Spanish and Latin American music during the year 2011". In an even more enthusiastic critical reception, Pablo J. Vayón highlighted, among other aspects, "the transparency, warmth, and proximity of the sound" (in Scherzo magazine, which chose "Invenciones de Glosas" among "those exceptional albums"). Others spoke of "an extraordinarily rigorous philological commitment" (F. de Paula Cañas, Diverdi), "a great service to Cabezón" (Bruno Turner), or made extensive mention of "the twenty-eight pages of notes, once again by Paco Rubio, the cornetist. The notes are of such remarkable quality in form and content that they deserved to be isolated and cited in the bibliographic section of this magazine ... notes that are mandatory reading not only to understand Cabezón, but also the music of a century" (Josemi Lorenzo, Audio Clásica). Ignasi Jordà, in Ritmo magazine, wrote: "it is not daring to say that we are facing the best recording of the music of the Burgos genius to this day". After a long hiatus without recording, Ministriles de Marsias began recording the "Batalla de Tientos" programme in September 2022.

Publications

Teaching

Paco Rubio's pedagogical work has focused on the study of glosa and ornamentation, as well as the cornett (cornetto). He is a professor of improvisation and ornamentation in early music and chamber music at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (ESMUC) in Barcelona, since the school's inception, both in the Bachelor's and Master's programmess that ESMUC conducts in collaboration with the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). He is also a cornett instructor at the Daroca Early Music Course, one of the oldest summer courses in Spain (and in Europe, alongside Urbino in Italy), where he was previously a student. Additionally, he teaches at other summer courses held in Guadassuar or Segovia. He has delivered lectures several times at the Organology Course of the Museum of Music in Barcelona, as well as at the Universidad Complutense of Madrid.

Links

https://es-es.facebook.com/ministriles