Lorenzo Palomo is one of the most successful contemporary Spanish composers, both in his native Spain and abroad. Soon after his birth in Ciudad Real in 1938 his family returned to Córdoba, where he spent the first twenty years of his life. His work has been strongly influenced by Andalusian music, with its Jewish and Moorish elements and melismas. At a very early age he displayed unusual gifts, and wrote his first piano pieces, his first songs and his first choral compositions at the age of twelve. He studied piano and harmony in Córdoba, before entering the Barcelona Conservatory, where he studied composition with Joaquín Zamacois and piano with Sofía Puche de Mendlewicz. He graduated with honours in counterpoint and fugue and in composition. Awarded the Juan March Foundation Grant he travelled to New York, where he studied conducting under Boris Goldovsky. In 1973 he was appointed chief conductor of the Valencia Symphony Orchestra, conducting such renowned artists as Montserrat Caballé, Placido Domingo, Franco Corelli, Pilar Lorengar, José Iturbi, Misha Dichter, Rafael Orozco and Alexis Weissenberg. His performances as a guest conductor have included a concert in Geneva in 1976 with l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande marking the centenary of Manuel de Falla.
The great success in Manila, Philippines of his ballet The Legend of Mount Bangkay in 1980, which he himself conducted, led Palomo to reduce his conducting activities and concentrate on his work as a composer. This long period as a conductor had its positive side for the composer, since during those years Palomo forged and matured a personal style while his conducting work gave him in-depth knowledge of the resources of the orchestra. His Spanish Songs, given their first performance by Montserrat Caballé at the Carnegie Hall, New York, in 1987, are known world-wide. The world première in Berlin in January 1996 of his Andalusian Nocturnes for guitar and orchestra marked the hitherto greatest success of Palomo’s career. The work was performed by Pepe Romero and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos.
In 1999 Lorenzo Palomo won a competition organized by the Rochester Academy of Medicine (University of Rochester, New York) to celebrate its Centenary. A commissioned piano trio had its première at the Rochester Academy of Medicine in November 2000. In June 2001 Palomo achieved a new outstanding success with the world première of his Cienfuegos Concerto for four guitars and orchestra. This work was commissioned by the Society of Composers of Spain. On this occasion it was performed at the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville by the Romeros Guitar Quartet and the Seville Royal Symphony Orchestra conducted by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos. December 2002 brought the successful world première of Lorenzo Palomo’s suite-fantasy for soprano, clarinet and orchestra, Cantos del alma, performed in Barcelona by the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Jesús López Cobos.
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