Los Temperamentos

Los
Temperamentos

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The En­sem­ble

Los Tem­pera­men­tos, found­ed in 2009, em­braces the mu­sic of the 17th and 18th cen­turies. Un­der the di­rec­tion of Colom­bian cel­list and arranger Nés­tor Fabián Cortés Garzón, the en­sem­ble spe­cial­izes in re­dis­cov­er­ing and res­onat­ing the re­la­tion­ships be­tween the seem­ing­ly op­pos­ing worlds of baroque mu­sic in Latin Amer­i­ca and Eu­rope. In their the­mat­i­cal­ly di­verse pro­grams, the artists blend dif­fer­ent styles, com­posers and cul­tures, thus re­peat­ed­ly demon­strat­ing the live­li­ness and im­mense rich­ness of col­ors of what is now sim­ply called “ear­ly mu­sic”.

Pre­vi­ous en­gage­ments in­clude the con­cert hall Glocke (Bre­men), Bach­fest Stuttgart, Hamburg’s Elbphil­har­monie, the Ho­hen­lo­her Kul­tur­som­mer (Schwäbisch Hall), Alte Musik in Fürsten­feld (Mu­nich), the Barock­fes­ti­val St.Pölten (Aus­tria), Juil­let Mu­si­cal de Saint Hu­bert, Mubafa, Au­tomne Mu­si­cal de Spa (Bel­gium), the Col­lège des Ber­nar­dins Paris, the Fes­ti­val Em­baro­que­ment Im­mé­di­at (France), the Mon­tever­di Fes­ti­val and the Mer­an­er Musik­wochen (Italy). The en­sem­ble has al­so per­formed at the Kas­teel­con­certen (Nether­lands), the Fes­ti­val Cis­ter­mu­si­ca, Fes­ti­val des Artes (Por­tu­gal), Fes­ti­val In­ter­na­cional de Mu­si­ca An­tigua (Pe­ru), Fes­ti­val In­ter­na­cional de Mu­si­ca An­tigua (Chile) and Fes­ti­val de Mu­si­ca Sacra Quito (Ecua­dor), as well as Fes­ti­val In­ter­na­cional de Músi­ca Re­na­cen­tista y Bar­ro­ca Mi­siones de Chiq­ui­tos in Bo­livia, the fes­ti­val IM­PUL­SO and Fes­ti­val de Músi­ca An­tigua y Bar­ro­ca Los Fun­dadores (Mex­i­co).

Five al­bums doc­u­ment the work of this in­ter­na­tion­al en­sem­ble, all of which have re­ceived ex­cel­lent re­views from na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia, in­clud­ing Fono Fo­rum, NDR Kul­tur, WDR 3, HR 2, and Ra­dio Stephans­dom Vi­en­na. Sev­er­al CDs have al­so been nom­i­nat­ed for the In­ter­na­tion­al Clas­si­cal Mu­sic Award.
With Fes­te­jo Pe­ru­ano, Los Tem­pera­men­tos re­cent­ly re­leased a com­plete record­ing of the Codex Martínez Com­pañón in arrange­ments by Nés­tor F. Cortés Garzón. In a pro­duc­tion fea­tur­ing chore­og­ra­phy by Pe­ru­vian dancer and chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Fabri­cio Rav­ela Trav­esí, the en­sem­ble de­buted this Pe­ru­vian pro­gram to a sold-out au­di­ence in the cham­ber mu­sic hall of Hamburg’s Elbphil­har­monie.
In the 2024/25 sea­son, Los Tem­pera­men­tos was se­lect­ed for a res­i­den­cy at the new Bre­men venue Zen­trum für Kun­st (Cen­ter for the Arts), where they re­al­ized a brand-new project called Colom­bia re:mixed com­bin­ing baroque mu­sic with the tra­di­tion­al Colom­bian gai­ta and elec­tron­ic sounds.

ARTISTIC DIRECTION

 
Néstor Cortés Garzón

Nés­tor Fabián Cortés Garzón

Artistic direction

Nés­tor Fabián Cortés Garzón dis­cov­ered his pas­sion for mu­sic through learn­ing to play the var­i­ous per­cus­sion and gui­tar in­stru­ments of the tra­di­tion­al mu­sic of his na­tive Colom­bia as a child and pro­ceed­ed to study clas­si­cal cel­lo at the Con­ser­va­to­rio de la Uni­ver­si­dad Na­cional de Colom­bia in Bo­gotá, grad­u­at­ing with hon­ors. Cortés sub­se­quent­ly spe­cial­ized in his­tor­i­cal­ly in­formed per­for­mance prac­tice by study­ing with the in­ter­na­tion­al­ly renowned baroque cel­list Vi­o­la de Hoog at the Bre­men Uni­ver­si­ty of the Arts.

For many years, in ad­di­tion to his con­cert life, Cortés has con­duct­ed in­ten­sive re­search in­to the baroque mu­sic of South and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca. He has re­con­struct­ed and arranged nu­mer­ous works from var­i­ous codices and tra­di­tions, which he presents with Los Tem­pera­men­tos at in­ter­na­tion­al fes­ti­vals. Five al­bums, all of which re­ceived ex­cel­lent re­views and have been nom­i­nat­ed for mul­ti­ple in­ter­na­tion­al awards, are tes­ta­ment to this work. Con­cert tours have tak­en Cortés Garzón to nu­mer­ous coun­tries in Eu­rope, the Amer­i­c­as, and Asia, in­clud­ing Ger­many, Italy, Por­tu­gal, the Czech Re­pub­lic, Aus­tria, France, Bel­gium, the Nether­lands, Chi­na, Ecua­dor, Bo­livia, Pe­ru, Chile, and Mex­i­co.

Fur­ther­more, as co-founder and artis­tic di­rec­tor of the Bre­men Baroque Or­ches­tra, found­ed in 2015, Cortés is in­ten­sive­ly in­volved with the or­ches­tral reper­toire of the Baroque and Clas­si­cal pe­ri­ods. In­ter­na­tion­al pro­duc­tions have brought him to­geth­er with renowned artists such as Dorothee Ober­linger, Sigiswald Kuijken, Ryo Ter­aka­do, Leonar­do Gar­cía Alar­cón, Mi­dori Seil­er, Al­fre­do Bernar­di­ni, and Gio­van­ni Sol­li­ma.
Thanks to Cortés’ cre­ative in­spi­ra­tion, the Bre­men Baroque Or­ches­tra has gained wide­spread au­di­ences and in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion in re­cent years with three high­ly re­viewed al­bums and high-qual­i­ty video pro­duc­tions on YouTube. The stream­ing chan­nel re­cent­ly reached 11 mil­lion views world­wide. In 2024, the or­ches­tra al­so cel­e­brat­ed its Asian de­but; on a mul­ti-week tour, the Bre­men en­sem­ble per­formed in a to­tal of 19 Chi­nese cities. Their lat­est re­lease, “And every lit­tle star,” was nom­i­nat­ed for the longlist of the Ger­man Record Crit­ics’ Award (Preis der Deutschen Schallplat­tenkri­tik) in 2025.