Multi award-winning Peruvian-Austrian tenor Juan Diego Flórez has now founded his own label. The first album of the label to be released is dedicated to the zarzuela genre. It also marks the star tenor‘s first recording with Sinfonía por el Perú Youth Orchestra and Choir, an organization that forms part of the social project he founded and supports. This first recording is led by conductor Guillermo García Calvo, who looks back on a long international career and has been Music Director of the Teatro de la Zarzuela between 2020 and 2024. A tour to major European arts centers featuring selected romances and orchestral pieces accompanies the release.

Juan Diego Flórez has made a name for himself as a bel canto specialist in particular. By turning to “zarzuela,” he returns to the genre with which he opened up the world of opera as a young singer and composer of popular songs. “These romances full of passion and emotion represent an almost unique opportunity for Spanish and Latin American tenors to sing in their mother tongue,” he says, describing his close connection to this Spanish form of opéra comique or operetta, which is very well-known and popular in the Hispanic world but less represented in other countries. By founding his own label, Juan Diego Flórez pursues the goal of documenting his artistic visions in a self-determined way.

The next releases include both solo albums, orchestra recitals, as well as complete operas. Having his own label also gives him the opportunity to support projects with Sinfonía por el Perú as well as promote young artists. “This recording production certainly fills me with happiness and pride. Firstly, because it represents my first recording with the Youth Orchestra and Choir of Sinfonía por el Perú - a social movement that seeks to improve the lives of Peruvian children and youngsters through the collective practice of music; secondly, because it was done in Lima, my hometown; and thirdly, because it constitutes the launch of my own record label." Juan Diego Flórez

A French singer of Spanish origin, Pauline Viardot García (1821-1910) was a proponent of the cosmopolitan impulse that characterized European culture in the mid-19th century. She was a piano student of Liszt, a close friend of Clara Schumann, and was highly celebrated by the likes of Berlioz, Chopin, and Gounod. On this release Laure de Marcellus performs works both by and inspired by Pauline Viardot. She is joined by pianist Alberto Urroz. Her collaboration with Urroz is becoming a regular feature at Navarra’s Mendigorría Music Festival. After their last recital of a very well-received program of songs by Schubert, Liszt, and Fauré, they performed a Schumann program to rave reviews before Covid hit. They recorded this album in Spring of 2021.