“A conductor ‘with the incisive clarity of someone born to the idiom.’”
-The Washington Post
RECENT NEWS
"Bassoons And Budget Problems: The Future Of Classical Music In The Region"
Listen to NPR’s Kojo Nnami, The Washington Post's Anne Midgette, Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez, and others in the DC arts community, take a wider look at classical music across the Washington region, and talk about the best places to hear and learn about classical music close by.
Kojo Nnamdi, WAMU 88.5
August 6, 2019
"This was indeed a stirring concert."
In Mr. Hernandez-Valdez’s arrangement, “Song of Nature” runs a crowded 10 minutes or so. The music traverses the dynamic gamut, soft to loud, several times, but the message, generalized as it was, was effectively conveyed by the excellent chorus of 35 and the narrator, David Rockefeller Jr.
For the requiem, Musica Viva deployed 11 players in Joachim Linckelmann’s arrangement for chamber ensemble to good effect, and again, the chorus came through loud and clear. With Devony Smith and Joseph Beutel as fine vocal soloists in the Brahms, and Shabnam Abedi in the Bernstein, this was indeed a stirring concert...
James R. Oestreich, The New York Times
May 12, 2017
WQXR Interview with Helga of NYPR
For conductor Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez, an attentive and hungry audience is one of the essential parts of creating a transcendent musical experience. That’s why he scatters his Musica Viva choir at All Souls Church on the Upper East Side throughout the church. So the audience is in the middle of the action.
In this conversation, Davis and Hernandez-Valdez talk about the challenges of managing both choirs and audience, the meditative qualities of live choral music, and the capability of music to transcend daily life to a spiritual plane.
December 19, 2016