El Afecto Ilustrado

Established in 2012, El Afecto Ilustrado is a Spanish chamber-music ensemble specialised in historically informed interpretations of the repertoire composed between the early Baroque and Romantic periods, which it performs in a proximate and tangible manner.

Exploring uncommon concert formats, the group is comprised of renowned professionals in Spain and abroad. Its members are actively engaged in Spain's leading musical groups, in teaching or in careers as soloists. They form a compendium of ideas and views that transform the group's projects into unique experiences that inspire audiences.

The preparation and performance of the projects of El Afecto Ilustrado reveal high levels of interpretive quality, historical precision and respect for primary sources, the result of a detailed process of research of music and history. The group's repertoire is based on European and Iberian-American works as well as its focus on recovering and disseminating Iberian musical heritage.

With a decade of experience, El Afecto Ilustrado is among the Canary Islands' most experienced and consolidated history-based groups. In addition, it is a member of GEMA, an association of Spanish early-music groups. Marking its 10th year as a group, El Afecto Ilustrado completed its second audio recording, which features a collection of Pieces for string quintets with two violas composed by José Palomino (1753-1810). The recording was released on the Lindoro label, which specialises in early and Baroque music, and includes and recovers several previously unrecorded works.

El Afecto Ilustrado was invited to take part in De Isla en Continente (2019), an exhibition on José de Viera y Clavijo held at the National Library of Spain, in which it interpreted the melologue Que me escribe la vida. The group also created a score to accompany the French 1928 silent film La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928) of Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer for the International Film Festival of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. On the other hand, it has recorded incidental music for notable theatre companies such as ‘Unahoramenos’ and ‘Delirium Teatro’. In 2023 it undertook the musical part of the exhibition Juan de Miranda, the journey of a Canarian artist from the Baroque to the Enlightenment, organised by the Canary Islands Government, offering concerts in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Madrid.

El Afecto Ilustrado has visited a large number of national stages, such as the Auditorio de Tenerife with Jone Martínez and Hugo Bolívar, the Canary Islands International Music Festival - FIMC, the Early Music Series of the Cathedral of Valencia, the Concert Series of the City of Culture of Galicia-CDC, the concert season of the Philharmonic Society of Vigo, the Bal y Gay Chamber Music Festival of Lugo, the concert season of the Philharmonic Society of Pontevedra,  the Sacred Music Series of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the Chamber Music Festival of La Orotava, the Concerts of the Summer University of the University La Laguna, the Early Music Series of Columbus House in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the Concerts Cycle of the Museum of Fine Arts of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the Concerts Cycle of the Museum of Fine Arts of A Coruña, the Religious Music Festival of the Canaries, the Concerts Cycle of the Royal Canary Academy of Fine Arts (RACBA), etc.

Its first violinist and director Adrián Linares received the Excellens music award in 2020 from the Canarian Royal Academy of Fine Arts for his work in research, interpretation and dissemination of early music in the Canary Islands.

Adrián Linares, concertmaster and direction

A native of Puerto de la Cruz, he is a solo violinist in the Galician Symphony Orchestra, Concertmaster of the Tenerife Baroque Orchestra and director of the historically informed ‘El Afecto Ilustrado’. 

He began his studies in Tenerife with the teachers Tibor Kóvacks and Fernando Rodríguez Fragoso, professor of violin at the Higher Conservatoire of Music of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. In 2004 he entered the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, in Holland, undertaking higher studies with Johannes Leertouwer. In 2008 the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport awarded him a scholarship to undertake master’s studies with the violinist Peter Brunt, and he obtained the highest score. Likewise, he received masterclasses from the instrumentalists Philippe Graffin, Agustín León Ara, Stefano Pagliani and Joaquín Palomares, among others. 

During his studies in the Canaries, he formed part of different youth orchestras on the archipelago and made his debut as a soloist in different contests for young performers. Likewise, he was a member of the National Youth String Orchestra of the Netherlands. In 2006 he joined the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, travelling around the most outstanding European stages and working with highly renowned artists such as Sir Colin Davis, Myung-Whun Chung, los hermanos Capucon, Thomas Hampson, Nicolaj Znaider or Susan Graham. Between 2019 and 2010 he alternated between the role of principal and co-principal second violin in the Chamber Orchestra of the City of Rotterdam - Rotterdam Symphony. 

Deeply interested in historically informed performance, he undertook baroque violin studies in Amsterdam and took lessons in Spain alongside Amandine Beyer and Emilio Moreno. He undertook master studies in baroque violin and the performance of early music at Porto's Superior School of Music and Performing Arts (ESMAE) with the French violinist Benjamin Chénier. He has regularly collaborated with baroque orchestras like  De Nederlandse Bachvereniging, La Ritirata, Orquesta Barroca de Palma de Mallorca, Divino Sospiro, Harmonia del Parnàs, Camerata Boccherini and De Nieuwe Philharmonie Utrecht, orchestra of which he is a founder member. In 2012 he also founded the historically informed ensemble El Afecto Ilustrado, and since 2017 he has been the concertmaster of the Tenerife Baroque Orchestra. 

Since 2014 he has been the principal second violinist in the Galician Symphony Orchestra, where he has worked under the baton of highly renowned directors such as Lorin Maazel, Sir Nelville Marriner, Gustavo Dudamel, Jesús López Cobos, Richard Egarr, Carlo Rizzi, Dima Slobodeniouk, Marc Albrecht or Ton Koopman. He has also worked with renowned soloists like Anne-Sophie Mutter, Maxim Vengerov, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Isabelle Faust and Lars Vogt. 

Adrián Linares also teaches regularly in the Children’s Orchestra of the Galician Symphonic Orchestra, in the Youth Orchestra of the Galician Symphonic Orchestra, and in the Youth Orchestra of the Canaries. 

Vadym Makarenko, baroque violin

In his early years studying violin, Vadym developed his great passion for music. While training at the Kyiv Institute of Music, he went
 on many trips to different international festivals and really developed his interest in the visual arts, especially painting and drawing.

It was the discovery of early music that led him to undertake a new path towards western Europe. During his studies at the Schola Cantorum in Basel, he acquired a deeper knowledge of historically informed performance and gave several concerts in different places around the world.

As a result of moving to Madrid in 2019, Vadym has actively participated in the musical life of Spain, regularly sharing the stage with different groups like "La Guirlande", "El Tiento Nuovo" or “La Ritirata”, among others.

On the other hand, the young musician continues to maintain a close relationship with France and Switzerland where he mainly carries out his activity with different performers. This is the case of his musical duo with Amandine Beyer, the ensemble "Gli Incógniti", the orchestra “Collegium 1704” under the direction of Vaclav Luks or his own ensemble “Infermi d’Amore”.

In 2022 Vadym produced his debut album “Lost in Venice” and the Jumstart Jr. Foundation leased him a violin of Lorenzo & Tomaso Carcassi (1760).

Víctor Gil, baroquie viola

He began his viola studies at the “José Castro Ovejero” Conservatoire in León. He subsequently moved to the Higher Conservatoire of Music of Salamanca, where he graduated with Néstor Pou. He then obtained his Master´s in Music at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, under the guidance of Sven Arne Tepl, with whom he would continue studying at the Conservatoire of Amsterdam. He has received master classes from Nobuko Imai, Jürgen Kussmaul, Gérard Caussé, Natacha Tchitch, Richard Wolfe, David Dolan and Michael Gieler.

Since 2011 he has resided in Madrid where he carries out his professional activity. He currently works in the Orchestra of Spanish Radio and Television. He regularly collaborates with with the Symphony Orchestra of Castille and León, the Madrid Community Orchestra (ORCAM), the National Orchestra of Spain, the Symphony Orchestra of Galicia, and the Orchestra Ciudad de Barcelona.

Within the field of early music, he began training in 2001 at the Early Music Courses of the University of Salamanca and he was part of the Baroque Orchestra of the same institution. Likewise, he received masterclasses from Win ten Have, Andoni Mercero, Pedro Gandía, Maggie Urqhart and Mira Glodeanu. 

Since 2016, he has been a member of El Afecto Ilustrado, a group specialising in the music of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Since 2017, he collaborates with The Baroque Orchestra of Tenerife and has worked with conductors like Alfonso Sebastián, Juan de la Rubia, Jacques Ogg, Raul Moncada and Luis Antonio González.

He has also worked with ensembles like Academy of Ancient Music (UK), Los Músicos de su Alteza, La Madrileña, Los Afectos Diversos, Camerata Antonio Soler and La Spagna, among others.

Diego Armando Pérez, baroque violoncello 

Born in Tenerife in 1981, he began his violoncello studies with the teacher Juraj Janosik, in 1999 he moved to the “Eduardo Martínez Torner” Higher Conservatoire of Music of Oviedo, where he graduated with the top score in the specialities of Violoncello and Chamber Music with the teacher Vigen Sarkissov.

He was trained by Mark Peters, Mark Friedhoff, Rudolf Leopold, Dmitri Ferschtmann and Walter Despalj with concert activity. From that point on he has had an abundance of concert activity around Croatia, Germany, Belgium, France and Spain.

He was a violoncellist with the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra between 2015 and 2017 and subsequently, he has been a regular collaborator with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Gran Canaria until the present. His teaching activity has mainly been carried out in Tenerife at the Municipal Music Schools of Laguna and Güímar between 2002 and the present.

In 2020 he obtained (once again with the top score) a Master´s Degree in the Performance of Early Music in the speciality of Historic Violoncello from the Catalonia College of Music (ESMUC) with the teacher Emmanuel Balssa. In addition, he took Baroque cello classes from Wieland Kujken, Itziar Atutxa and Mark Peters. He is a member of the ensembles “Tenerife Antigua”, “Clave Antigua”, “Orquesta Barroca de Tenerife” and “El Afecto Ilustrado” a group with which he was recently produced albums based around historical recovery.

Ventura Rico, violone

He was born in Seville, after studying at the conservatoires in his home town, Vienna and The Hague, the latter is where he obtained his soloist diploma as a pupil of Wieland Kuijken, he began a musical career that led him to collaborate with the main Spanish and foreign early music groups, holding several concerts with them and producing more than thirty sound recordings. He has performed with the ensembles Al Ayre Español, Hesperión XX, Orfénica Lyra, Academy of Ancient Music or Il Gardellino, among many others.

In 1992 he founded the trio Poema Harmonico together with Juan Carlos Rivera and Guillermo Peñalver, a group with which he has carried out a significant part of his musical life. Likewise, he was part of the Private Musik viola quintet in Vienna.

He has had the pleasure of accompanying performers such as Gustav Leonhardt, Christophe Coin, Monica Huggett, Enrico Onofri and Alfredo Bernardini, among others. Likewise, he has worked as a regular accompanist of singers like Carlos Mena, Nuria Rial and Marta Almajano.

In 1995 he founded the Baroque Orchestra of Seville alongside Barry Sargent, and in 2011 he collected the National Music Prize on its behalf.

Carlos Oramas, theorbo

He studied at the conservatories of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Madrid, Luxembourg and "Mozarteum" in Salzburg (Austria) with the professors Olímpiades García, Joaquín Prats, Demetrio Ballestros, Eliot Fisk and José Miguel Moreno, among others.

He has won prizes in the Andrés Segovia competitions (Santiago de Compostela,1992), the Musical Youth of Spain (Girona,1992), Villa de Laredo  (Santander, 1992), the Extraordinary End of Degree Prize (Madrid, 1991), the Martín Codax International Competition (Málaga, 1990), Alhambra International Competition (Alcoy, 1990) and Comillas International Guitar Competition (Santander,1989).

As a soloist he has performed with the Symphonic Orchestra of Luxembourg and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Gran Canaria and for events such as the Canary Islands Music Festival, Rio Loco Festival (Tolousse), Volos Guitar Festival (Greece), Womex (Copenhague), Early Music Festival of Sajazarra (La Rioja), Early Music Festival of Aranjuez, Early Music of Bolzano, Early Music of Daroca, Musika Festival of Bilbao....

He has performed in numerous concerts in countries like Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, Brasil, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Greece, France, Germany, Portugal, Luxembourg, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark and Spain. He has performed in concert halls like Philarmonie (Cologne), Tonhalle (Zurich), Liederhalle (Stuttgart), Victoria Hall (Geneva), Grosses Festspielhaus (Salzburg), Gulbenkian (Lisabon), Tonhalle (Dusseldorf), Teatro El Galpón (Montevideo) and Auditorio Alfredo Kraus (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria).

He has recorded for labels like Warner Music, Opera 3 (Madrid), ASV (Londres), Oasis (Madrid) y Multitrack (Tenerife). He has performed with musicians like Carlos Mena, Camerata Ibérica, Claudio Astronio, Bozen Baroque Orchestra, Iván Martín, Paolo Panndolfo, Músicos do Tejo, Luis Delgado, Eduardo Paniagua, Juan Carlos de Mulder, Ensemble Galdós…

A specialist in early music, he is the co-founder of the groups Magios, Alegransa and the group La Capilla del Real de Las Palmas. He is currently a teacher at the Higher Conservatoire of Music of the Canaries.

Raquel García, organ  

Raquel García Cabrera was born in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and obtained a higher degree in Piano in 2002 at the Higher Conservatoire of Music in the same city.

She began her studies in harpsichord under the guidance of Vicent Bru i Soler at the Professional Music Conservatoire of Gran Canaria, in 2009 she received the End of Degree Prize, and in 2013 she completed her Harpsichord studies at the Higher Conservatoire of Music of the Canaries with Honours as a pupil of Mar Tejadas. She has also taken classes from Frédérick Hass, Jacques Ogg, Luca Guglielmi, José L. González Uriol and Benoit Douchy, among others.

She obtained a Master's Degree in the Performance of Early Music from the ESMUC in 2020. She regularly collaborates with groups specialising in the historically informed performance of early music such as Clave Antigua, Humboldt Ensemble, Capilla Nivariense, Tenerife Antigua, El Afecto Ilustrado and the Tenerife Baroque Orchestra. She currently teaches Harpsichord at the Professional Music Conservatoire of Tenerife.