Madrid, June 17, 2025.- This afternoon, the closing ceremony of the 2024-2025 academic year of the Reina Sofía School of Music and the annual awards ceremony of the institution took place in Auditorium 400 of the Reina Sofía National Art Center Museum, under the presidency of Her Majesty Queen Sofía.
The event began with the intervention of Paloma O’Shea, Founding President of the School, who gave an overview of the center’s recent activity and its future projection.
“I appreciate the presence of Her Majesty Queen Sofía, who not only gave her name and support to the School when it was little more than a dream, but has cared for and accompanied it during all these years, which are now 34. We are also joined by Emilio Viciana, Minister of Education of the Community of Madrid, and Manuel Segade, director of the Reina Sofía Museum, which welcomes us today.”
Paloma O’Shea highlighted in the artistic section that “our most ambitious project is the trip to New York. After the successful tour we made through Bratislava, Budapest and Vienna, our orchestra will perform next November at Carnegie Hall conducted by maestro Andrés Orozco-Estrada. These orchestra trips allow our students to begin to experience the tension of professional life.”
She also remarked that “The School occupies a leading position in international music education with the selection of teachers and students exclusively on their merit. Our emphasis on ensemble music, on projecting onto the stage what happens in the classroom, and the intense teacher-student interaction, are our hallmarks. Our students and alumni hold positions of responsibility in the main Spanish orchestras and in many of the most important in Europe, and also win important international competitions.”
Next, Her Majesty Queen Sofía presented the Diplomas to the most outstanding students in the violin, viola, cello, double bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, piano, singing, composition, orchestra conducting and chamber music (string quartets, wind quartets and groups with piano) professorships.
Subsequently, Queen Sofía presented the School Plaques to professors Nicolás Pasquet, holder of the “Zubin Mehta” Professorship of Orchestra Conducting, with the support of Aline Foriel-Destezet, and Florent Boffard, director of the Postgraduate Diploma in Contemporary Piano, the two most recent additions to its academic offer, and to Rosa Lázaro, member of the Academic Department of the Reina Sofía School since its origins in 1991.
Likewise, they received the Medal of Honor, the highest distinction awarded by the School, created by the sculptor Julio López Hernández, for their outstanding collaboration with the institution, Nobuko Imai, professor of the BBVA Foundation Viola Chair -the medal was collected by her most outstanding student of the current academic year 24/25, Hiroki Kasai-; David del Puerto, composer and professor of harmony at the School, and Juan A. Mendoza V., for his twenty-five years at the head of the artistic direction at the School.
The ceremony concluded with a concert by the Freixenet Orchestra of the School under the baton of maestro Pablo González, who performed the work of Wolfgang A. Mozart, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 9 in E flat major K 271 “Jeunehomme”, with the student Michael Davidman, recent winner of the “American Piano Awards” as a piano soloist.
