Consort-Musik, is a project founded in 2017, in order to generate a contribution in the production, interpretation and dissemination of the art and culture of classical music in Panama. For us, our priority is to have an approach with our audience by bringing them a quality product, fulfilling a duty with art and with the culture of our country and the region. Its mission is to contribute to the development of culture and classical art in Panama, to create a high-level artistic proposal that provides an alternative to the society of our country, which seeks and wants quality art. Promote a labor market for professional musicians, encouraging the development of music as a profession.

Ensemblast fuses the aesthetics of the classic quartet with contemporary Latin American styles and borrowing freely from a variety of musical languages -folk, jazz, salsa, bolero, world and pop. In devising a performance practice that honors both in fl uences, the state of the art has inevitably been redefined in chamber music for strings, piano, other instruments and singers. Depending on the Ensemblast program, it accommodates three to six musicians including violin, cello, bass, piano, percussion, voice or guitar, wind instruments. Created in 2012 under the name of “Baton Rouge Latin American Quartet”, in 2014 the project was renamed the “Ensemblast Project”, currently Esnemblast. The project has been presented in the southern United States and in Panama. This musical project is promoted by Panamanian cellist Isaac Casal.

The National Symphony Orchestra of Panama was founded on May 27, 1941 with the support of the National Government and on the initiative of maestro Herbert De Castro who was its first director. Since its inception it has functioned under the organizational structure of the National Institute of Culture (INAC) now Ministry of Culture. The orchestra has tackled all kinds of symphonic repertoire ranging from Bach to Mahler or Bruckner, without neglecting the more traditional classical repertoire such as Mozart, Haydn, Brahms or Beethoven.

The Symphony Orchestra of the University of Panama is a musical group of an academic and open nature, is made up of 70 undergraduate students from the Faculty of Fine Arts, as well as some teachers, who join this project and directed by Dr. Sebastián Cohen (Argentina). The teaching mission of the Symphony Orchestra is to contribute to the studies of music students, through the practice of knowledge and discipline required of a symphonic musician. The Symphony Orchestra of the University of Panama is a sound vehicle to disseminate music within the university premises and in the community in general.

Juvenal Correa was born in Santiago, Chile, and has acted as soloist in organ, piano and harpsichord in recitals and with large ensembles in the United States, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. He studied music in Chile, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Spain, Italy and the United States and graduated from the University of Indiana. He has been a visiting professor at international universities and symposia in Europe, South America and the United States. He is also currently a member of the faculty of the FIU School of Music in Miami in the Opera and Ancient Music Departments, and works in collaboration with Miami City Ballet, in addition to complying with his composition, presentations and presentations agenda for the current season.

The pianist and conductor Ricardo Castro is the Founder and General Director of a new system of youth orchestras in Bahia, NEOJIBA (State Youth and Children’s Orchestra Centers of Bahia), created in 2007 in collaboration with the Venezuelan “El Sistema.” He is also the first ever Latin-American to win in 1993 the prestigious Leeds International Piano Competition. Concerts followed in some of the world’s major concert halls and with the finest orchestras and conductors. Since 1992 Ricardo Castro teaches piano at the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne in Switzerland.

Former principal percussionist of the Costa Rica National Symphony Orchestra, Fernando Meza has been director of percussion studies at the University of Minnesota School of Music since 1993. Meza holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Baylor University, and has been on the faculties of The Ohio State University, the National Center of Music, and the University of Costa Rica. Meza is recognized for his versatility in both educational and performance arenas and can be heard regularly with the Minnesota Orchestra and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra among others. He has toured and recorded throughout Latin America, USA, Europe, Japan, and Lithuania, with such renowned artists as Keiko Abe, Nebojsa Zivkovic, and the Bakken Trio, and was one of the original percussionists for the award-winning Broadway production of Disney’s The Lion King. As presenter and organizer of the Marimba 2010 International Festival and Conference, a 3½ day event which brought together over 50 of the world’s leading marimba artists to the Twin Cities, Meza is actively engaged in expanding the art form of percussion.  To this end, he has recorded with a number of artists for the Denon-Columbia, BIS, Reference, Equilibrium, Sony, Turtle, and D’Note music labels, as well as produced his own solo recording of Suites for Unaccompanied Cello by J.S. Bach performed on marimba, which can be found through cdbaby.com, iTunes, and other digital music providers. Fernando is in demand as an adjudicator, clinician, and guest artist internationally, and serves as an educational and/or performing artist for Zildjian, Grover ProPercussion, and Yamaha Corporation.

Javier Gándara has been a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since 1999.  He is also on the Horn Faculty at the Manhattan School of Music and the Juilliard Pre-College Division. Gándara began his professional career at the age of 16 when he won a position in the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra while still attending high school at La Escuela Libre de Música in San Juan.  He later studied at Indiana University and obtained a BM from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Ranier DeIntinis. He has held positions with the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias (principal), Orquesta Sinfónica de Euscadi (principal), and the Oregon Symphony (assistant principal) and has performed as a guest with the New York Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony. He is also part of the faculty of YOA Orchestra of the Americas, and has been a coach for the National Youth Orchestra System in Colombia (Batuta) and the Swedish National Youth Orchestra.

Principal Trumpet at the Opera House in Rome, Mauro Maur has recorded for BMG Ariola, RCA, Sony Columbia and Denon. Trumpet player, conductor and composer for the theater, the television as well as for the cinema, Maur has played in prestigious concert halls in more than 40 countries around the world such as Carnegie Hall (New York), Festspiele (Salzburg), Megaron (Athens), Seoul Arts Center, Scala of Milan. Maur graduated at the National Conservatory of Paris where he studied with Pierre Thibaud. He also completed studies at Northwestern University in Chicago with A. Herseth, V. Cichowicz, A. Jacobs. Composers such as Morricone, Theodorakis, Bussotti, Clementi, Vlad, Ronchetti, Dashow, Scogna, de Rossi Re, have dedicated several musical compositions to Maur. He worked with Ennio Morricone for more than 18 years, who has dedicated many solos of his films to him and also his trumpet concerto named “Ut.” Maur has played in more than 100 films on sound tracks composed by Morricone, Piovani, Ortolani, Goldsmith, and Delerue. At the request of Italian President of the Council of Ministers, Maur was given the honorary distinction of Cavaliere (Knight) dell’Ordine “al Merito della Repubblica Italiana.”

Rodion Tolmachev has been Principal Bassoon of the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra since 2003, and a postgraduate and an assistant at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire since 2008. He is a prizewinner of the All-Russian Woodwind Players Competition, the ARD Woodwind Quintet Competition, KMECPS Competition, and Fernend Gillet-Hugo Fox International Bassoon Competition.