About this Artist
Born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, GUSTAVO PEÑA (Voice from the forge) began his singing studies in his city’s Superior Conservatory with Mario Guerra. Then he moved to Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where he obtained degrees under the direction of María Orán. Later, he attended training courses with Miguel Zanetti, Alejandro Zabala, Félix Lavilla, and Wolfram Rieger, being awarded by Juventudes Musicales Españolas. In 2002 he obtained the First Prize in the Regional Singing Contest of Cajacanarias.
He participates as soloist in important festivals such as Music Festival of Canary Islands, Mozart Festival of La Coruña, Robecco Summerfestival (Amsterdam), and opera seasons in Bilbao, Teatro Real, Teatro Liceo, Teatro de la Zarzuela, and Teatro de la Maestranza in Sevilla, as well as the seasons of the major orchestras in Spain. During the 2004/2005 season he sang at the Staatsoper unter den Linden in Berlin.
He performs a wide repertoire that includes works from early music to this day, operas (Monteverdi, Mozart, Bizet, Puccini, Strauss, Berg, Falla, Janácek, Halffter, etc.) and oratorios (Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Bruckner, Rossini, Beethoven, etc.) as well as symphonic works (Falla, Beethoven, Britten, Mendelssohn, Fauré, and Schumann) and zarzuela. He made his debut in 2007/08, with the main role in the chamber operas Hangman! Hangman! and The Town of Greed, by Leonardo Balada, at the Teatro de la Zarzuela. He collaborated with the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada in the recording of Misereres.
Gustavo Peña has collaborated with important international orchestras, such as Freiburger Barockorchester, Dutch Radiokammer Orchester, Staatskapelle Berlin, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Dresdner Philharmonie, National Orchestra of Greece, and the most important Spanish orchestras and chamber ensembles. He has collaborated with many prestigious conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Bertrand de Billy, René Jacobs, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Semyon Bychkov, Charles Dutoit, and Günter Neuhold, among others, as well as most of the Spanish conductors (including Juanjo Mena, Josep Pons, Victor Pablo Pérez, Antoni Ros Marbà, Max Valdés, and José Ramón Encinar).
He is heard on the Decca recording of the opera Guernika by Francisco Escudero, along with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Euskadi under the direction of José Ramón Encinar.