(Antoni Parera Fons, Manacor 1943)

Trained at the conservatories of Palma de Mallorca and Valencia, he took piano lessons from Rosa Sabater. He began his brilliant career as a singer/songwriter with songs like Les muntanyes, Tot ja és mort and T’estim, t’estimaré.

His work includes music for theatre, cinema and television. The cantata Dictionarium in musica, premiered in Palma de Mallorca in light of the Francesc de Borja Moll centenary. The collection Siete Nanas (2005), on poems by Rafael Alberti, premiered at the Festival Chopin de Valldemosa and was recorded by the mezzo Maria José Montiel and the pianist Miquel Estelrich. The series El darrer viatge (2005), with words by Guillem d’Efak was premiered, recorded and performed in Barcelona, Buenos Aires and New York by the baritone Joan Pons. In addition, the songs from Geografies de l’ànima (2006), on texts by Miquel Costa i Llobera and Joan Alcover, recorded by the mezzo-soprano Maia Planas, and his extensive vocal catalogue, showcase his personal style which is of a contemporary classicism that breathes a lyricism of  great intensity and communicative power. His roots, marked by Mallorca’s traditional music, are present in his work, always full of Mediterranean colour and sober accents in which one can note the influence of French impressionism, the Albéniz’s colours and Mompou’s spirituality. One of his most ambitious scores is the lied series Les trente-trois noms de Dieu (2007), based on a text by Marguerite Yourcenar, premiered at the Setmana de Música Religiosa de Conca for the low baritone José van Dam and Parera Fons himself on piano, recorded live and released by the label Decca. Under the inspiration of his native island’s traditional music, he is currently working on the piano corpus Quaderns de Mallorca.

In his role as a record producer, he worked on the opening and closing ceremonies for the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, as well as artistic director of the collection Zarzuelas, released by Fundación Caja Madrid, Naïve and Deutsche Grammophon. We could also add his hundreds of albums with singers that include Alfredo Kraus, Montserrat Caballé, Josep Carreras, Jaume Aragall, María Bayo and Joan Pons, and with conductors like Antoni Ros Marbà, Víctor Pablo Pérez and Jesús López Cobos, on recordings with mostly Spanish symphony orchestras. The recording of the opera El gato con botas, by Montsalvatge, produced in 2004 by the Gran Teatre del Liceu and released by Columna Música, was a Grammy nominee for Best Opera Recording.

In the past five years, his catalogue as a composer has notably been enriched with a run of ambitious scores. One of them is Nocturn per a un capvespre blau (2009), a refined score for a symphony orchestra, of great timbral beauty and enthralling orchestral color and meaning, written as a commission by the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya (OBC). After its premiere in the Auditori de Barcelona, with Josep Pons conducting, his success grew even more with performances by the symphony orchestras of Tenerife and A Coruña, both conducted by Víctor Pablo Pérez, not to mention the Orquesta Nacional de España (ONE), with Pons again conducting, and the Simfònica de Balears «Ciutat de Palma», conducted by Salvador Brotons.

One of his vocal works premiered on September 18, 2008 at the Teatre Principal de Mallorca. This cantata, El rei en Jaume I, was commissioned by the Consell de Mallorca based on a text by Guillem Frontera. José Antonio López and Francisco Vas were the star soloists for a performance of it by the Simfònica de Balears «Ciutat de Palma», conducted by Philippe Bender. That same year, the baritone Joan Pons premiered in Maó, Menorca, Tres cançons sobre textos de Ponç Pons, which was again performed in January 2009 at the Palau de la Música Catalana, as part of the Palau 100 series.

It is truly worth mentioning the monograph concert that The Foundation for Iberian Music dedicated to him in New York on November 19, 2011. The show, destined to have him make a name for himself, featured Lamento de Jueves Santo, for solo violin, played by violinist Ara Malikian, commissioned by the Setmana de Música Religiosa de Conca premiered in 2006, and the world launch of Mentum, a piece for solo piano played by Andreu Riera. It also featured Desolació, a chamber piece for soprano, violin, piano and a reciter, with text and narration by Guillem Frontera, with the voice of Isabel Rey, and Canciones para Loli, again with Rey –also the writer of the melody lyrics– and with the composer himself at the piano. A few days later, on November 30, 2011, Isabel Rey added in this last score into a recital she gave at the Teatre Pérez Galdós, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

As examples of his lied work, on April 20, 2011, Antoni Aragón presented to Palma de Mallorca Tríptic de Cabaret, three songs for tenor and piano from texts by Miquel Mestre. Three days later, as requested by the XII Setmana de Música Religiosa de Palma de Mallorca, they premiered Quatre poemes de Setmana Santa de Blai Bonet, for a traditional voice, soprano, tenor, baritone, reciter, chamber choir and piano, with Joan Company conducting and the participation of Maia Planas, Antoni Aragón, Toni Marsol and the Coral Universitat de les Illes Balears. The singer/songwriter Maria del Mar Bonet als participated. She would later continue performing fragments of this work in her concerts, for example, during a show at the Festival Grec de Barcelona 2011.

One of his most ambitious creations is Amb els peus a la lluna, a documentary opera with libretto by Paco Azorín and Manel Maestro, written as a request from the Festival Grec de Barcelona, Teatro de la Maestranza, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Teatro Real de Madrid and the Asociación Bilbaína de Amigos de la Ópera (ABAO). The premiere took place at the Teatre Lliure in Barcelona on July 16, 2010, with the soprano María Bayo and the instrumental group Barcelona 216, conducted by Virginia Martínez, and afterwards presented in Seville and Bilbao, and the Gran Teatre del Liceu also announced a show for its family program (Petit Liceu) coming up in March 2013. 

His latest works for voice and symphony orchestra are Towards Emily Dickinson, a series of six songs based on texts by the American poet, premiered on October 1, 2013, performed by the Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid, the contralto Ewa Podles and the conductor Víctor Pablo Pérez; and Llums de tardor, a series of six songs for baritone on texts by Guillem Frontera. He also has under wraps a new documentary opera on the figure of the Spanish philologist and lexicographer María Moliner.