This recording of the Mozart K.495 Concerto for horn and orchestra came about as the result of a project with Das Neue Mannheimer Orchester in the summer of 2021. The project consisted of a series of concertos for horn related to the Court at Mannheim. (It should be noted that in the live concert, the Concerto in E-flat by Franz Anton Dimmler was also performed; for this, I did the transcription and editing directly from the original manuscript [available on IMSLP] myself.) Mozart was rejected as Kapellmeister by the Mannheim Court orchestra, although he later conducted them in Munich with the premiere of his opera Idomeneo. With this pretext, my intent is to justify the relationship between Mozart and Mannheim. I have been working on this concerto since I was 11 years old, and I keep discovering new nuances. Without a doubt, the recording of my teacher, Teunis van der Zwart with the Freiburguer Barockorchester, was definitive in finding my own interpretation. In addition, the recording of the late Lowell Greer, who I didn’t have the honor of meeting, was a big inspiration. https://youtu.be/onLMN-VFqwY
Federico Cuevas Ruiz was born in 1994 in Ibiza. He began his horn studies at the age of 7 at the Music School of Ibiza with Professor Damián Boluda. In 2012, he began his Bachelor's degree at the Real Conservartorio Superior de Música de Madrid with Professor Elies Moncholí. After obtaining the highest grade on his graduation exam in 2018, he was accepted to the Conservatorium van Amsterdam to pursue his Master's degree in historical horns with Professor Teunis van der Zwart. There, he focused on studying and performing the music of the eighteenth century. Since graduating, he has played with numerous orchestras including the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, The Bach Choir & Orchestra of the Netherlands, Het Nationaal Jeugdorkest Nederland, Deutsche Händel-Solisten, etc.
