He is the musical director of the singer's anniversary tour and has just worked with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra at the legendary Konzerthaus
With a difference of 24 hours and nearly 2,000 kilometers, Víctor Eloy López has gone from conducting ‘Marinero de luces’ in front of 6,000 people in Bilbao to rehearsing Ernesto Lecuona’s ‘La malagueña’ at the Konzerthaus in Vienna. From accompanying Isabel Pantoja to raising the baton in front of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. As if it were nothing. Two seemingly opposing worlds, two radically different audiences, between which the Malaga-born conductor moves with astonishing ease. “And that enriches me.”
Víctor Eloy López, professor at the Higher Conservatory and founder of the Málaga Brass Band, is the musical director for Isabel Pantoja on her 50th anniversary tour. He is the baton that sets the tempo for the 60 musicians who make up the symphony orchestra accompanying the folk singer on her tour of greatest hits across much of the country.
“She is an artist from head to toe. She follows all the harmonies. She guides you where she wants to go.” But she doesn’t make it easy. If there’s one thing Pantoja is known for in her concerts, it’s her ability to improvise, with dramatic pauses in one song or changes in lyrics in another. She is influenced by the audience’s energy, with moments of euphoria and others of intimacy, and this requires an orchestra attentive to every gesture she makes. “She is a great professional, she moves the music as she pleases, and you have to follow her at all times. It’s more difficult than conducting an opera; it requires enormous concentration. If you lose focus for a second, you’re out,” he says.
Across from him, 6,000 people in Bilbao. About 9,000 in Seville. An audience that rarely sees a classical music conductor. “The cheers and applause are so loud when she comes on stage that you can’t hear the orchestra. I have to conduct them by inertia,” he comments. He has also been responsible for modernizing the symphonic arrangements, but without losing sight of making the songs sound as close to the record as possible. It’s, he says, what the audience expects.
Víctor Eloy directs musicians specifically selected for this anniversary tour with a very particular profile. They must master the symphonic repertoire, but they also need to have knowledge of flamenco and even Big Band. “We move from a copla to a super American sound and then to a bachata. The variety of styles is enormous,” he explains. None of this is unfamiliar to him. At 42 years old, copla is part of the soundtrack of his childhood in Perchel, constantly sung by his mother. This knowledge has been crucial to his involvement in this project.
He will accompany Isabel Pantoja during the international projection of her career. Víctor Eloy López began 2024 in Poland, conducting the New Year’s concert with the Szczecin Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra and a repertoire of Spanish and Latin American music. From Turina and Falla to Astor Piazzolla and Ernesto Lecuona with his ‘Malagueña’. “It was a success, with 20 minutes of applause and three encores,” he recounts. The melody by the Cuban composer is also being performed these days at the Konzerthaus in Vienna, where he has been rehearsing the tour that the Vienna Chamber Orchestra will undertake with mezzo-soprano Elina Garanča and conductor Karel Mark Chichon. The program includes music by Chapí, Gounod, and waltzes by Johann Strauss II. “And it’s a challenge to conduct waltzes with an orchestra like Vienna’s in Vienna, where it is part of their purest tradition,” he admits. While in an Isabel Pantoja concert the ultimate goal is emotion, here perfection is paramount. “And working there, where the greatest conductors in the world have been, is both a responsibility and an honor.”
Another chapter in the career of a versatile and restless conductor. With a degree in History and Music Sciences, a diploma in Musical Education, and a master’s in Interpretation of Musical Heritage, his first contact with this world was through the Banda de la Expiración. Since then, study, research, and performance have been his life. And in various fields: Víctor Eloy López is also the founder and director of the Málaga Brass Band, a brass ensemble made up of local professionals that a year ago achieved the feat of being the European runner-up in the European Brass Band Championship, akin to the UEFA of brass bands, a milestone no Spanish band had reached before. “I am drawn to enriching myself through other styles. Any music well-performed adds something,” he concludes.