Debra Li

SPAIN’S Gran Canaria Philharmonic Orchestra (OFGC) will make its debut at the Shenzhen Citizens’ Center this Friday night as part of its world tour.

Conducted by Pedro Halffter Caro, the program will include the work of Spanish composer Manuel de Falla and the “Carmen Suite” familiar to Chinese fans. Nancy Fabiola Herrera, Spanish mezzo-soprano who has sung “Carmen” at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in 2005, will join the show.

“The local audience will love Herrera, a young mezzo-soprano who has shot to fame in the past two years,” said Zhang Diansheng, organizer of the show.

Apart from the role of Carmen, Herrera was the rich-voiced Maddalena in the Metropolitan Opera’s “Rigoletto” last fall. She has also debuted at the Casals Festival in Verdi’s “Requiem.”

Equally as comfortable on the concert stage as the operatic stage, she has performed Spanish songs as part of the 92nd Street Y’s New York Festival of Song, appeared in recital at the Caramoor Festival and sung “El Amor Brujo” with the Washington Opera Orchestra.

Founded in 1980 by the Gran Canaria Island Government, the OFGC has performed at music festivals in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Japan. It has performed with some of the world’s foremost conductors, including Mstislav Rostropovich, Antoni Wit, John Nelson and Pinchas Steinberg.

Adrian Leaper, with an exceptional reputation for musical integrity, intensity and expression, was the orchestra’s music director from 1994 to 2002. The orchestra has also performed with singers Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras and Alfredo Kraus.

Over the past few years, OFGC has released 25 CDs on the Arte Nova label. The recordings mainly include the symphonic works of Mahler, Sibelius and Dvorak. The orchestra’s most recent release was a CD for Warner Music with works by Falla conducted by Caro.

Caro, born in Madrid in 1971, studied piano, cello and music theory in the Schule Schloss Salem in Germany. In 1995, he graduated from a music conservatory in Vienna after studying with Professor Leopold Hager. He won the Composition Prize for Young Composers in Germany, the prize for young conductors of the European Union in Venice in 1997, and the prize for the best classical music performer of 2005 awarded by the Academy of Arts in Spain. He has conducted more than 15 works, including Bizet’s “Carmen,” Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly” and “Turandot.”