Ohrid, 11 August 2025 (MIA) – A concert by French harpist Xavier de Maistre and Lucero Tena on castanets will be held Monday as part of the Spanish evening at Ohrid Summer Festival.

The performance will be held at St. Sophia Church, starting at 9 pm.

Xavier de Maistre is one of today’s leading harpists and a profoundly creative musician. As a fierce champion of his instrument, he has broadened the harp repertoire, commissioning new work from composers. He also creates transcriptions of important instrumental repertoire.

He is regularly invited by first-class orchestras across the globe: Chicago, Montréal, City of Birmingham, Swedish and Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestras; Los Angeles, London, St Petersburg, Oslo and China Philharmonic Orchestras; Orchestre de Paris, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo; working with conductors including Sir André Previn, Sir Simon Rattle, Riccardo Muti, Daniele Gatti, Philippe Jordan, Bertrand de Billy, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Daniel Harding, Susanna Mälkki and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla.

As a recital soloist, he has been a guest at the most renewed International Festivals. He is passionate about chamber music and regularly puts together original recital projects, including numerous collaborations with highly versatile artists like tenor Rolando Villazón, castanet legend Lucero Tena, Diana Damrau, Arabella Steinbacher, Daniel Müller-Schott, Baiba Skride, Mojca Erdmann…

Xavier has been an exclusive Sony Music artist since 2008, when he recorded his first album, Nuit d’Etoiles, dedicated to Debussy. Further releases include Hommage à Haydn (2009), Aranjuez (2010), Notte Veneziana (2012), Moldau (2015), and La Harpe Reine (2016) with Les Arts Florissants and William Christie. His album Christmas Harp (October 2021) features paraphrases and fantasies of famous Christmas carols. He recorded a highly-acclaimed Serenata Latina album with Rolando Villazón (Deutsche Grammophon) in 2020. In autumn 2022, his latest CD dedicated to Russian music was released, featuring Reinhold Glière's famous harp concerto and Alexander Mosolov's forgotten concerto, accompanied by WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln under the baton of Nathalie Stutzmann.

Born in Toulon, Xavier studied the harp with Vassilia Briano at his local conservatoire, before perfecting his technique with Catherine Michel and Jacqueline Borot in Paris. He also studied in Sciences-Po Paris and then at the London School of Economics. In 1998 he was awarded First Prize (and two interpretation prizes) at the prestigious USA International Harp Competition (Bloomington) and became the first French musician to be admitted at the Wiener Philharmoniker that same year.

He has taught at Musikhochschule in Hamburg since 2001. He plays on a Lyon & Healy instrument.

Called by an Italian review the “Paganini of the castanets”, Lucero Tena has marked a personal, unmistakable style to her performance of the castanets, creating the concept of Castanets Soloist.

She has performed as soloist in concert halls around the five continents, under the baton of conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Mstislav Rostropovich, Rafael Frübeck de Burgos, Jesús López Cobos, Sergiu Comissiona, Peter Guth, Oliver Diaz among others. She also has performed as soloist with the most prestigious International Orchestras. Her last engagements includes Hannover opera house, La Folle Journée Festival in Nantes, Tokio and Warsaw, and concerts under the baton of Plácido Domingo at the Philarmonie of Berlin and at Teatro alla Scala in 2017, as well as guest soloist with the most important Spanish Orchestras.

On 2017 she recorded a new CD for the label Sony with Xavier de Maistre, Serenata Española, and started tours with this project all over the world. On 2018 she performed at the Hollywood Bowl with Plácido Domingo, MITO and Ravenna Festivals with Xavier de Maistre and debuted at the Philarmonie of Paris.

Her latest engagements include recitals with Xavier de Maistre in Germany, France, China, and Japan and in festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein and Spanish summer Festival, besides her soloist appearance in the Spanish Theaters and Opera Houses.

Photo: Ohrid Summer Festival