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21/10/2025
The groups participating in the Honor Section of the International Wind Band Contest «City of Valencia» 2026 will have to perform as a compulsory piece the score“Ressorgir”by the composerFrancisco Zacarés Fort.

BIOGRAPHY

He completed his musical studies at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Joaquín Rodrigo in Valencia, Spain. He holds advanced degrees in trombone, harmony, counterpoint and fugue, music theory, choral and orchestral conducting, music pedagogy, composition and instrumentation, and musicology.

As a composer, he has received various international awards: 1st Prize at the Composition Contest for Band in Kerkrade, 1995 (The Netherlands); 1st Prize at the International Trumpet Guild (ITG) Composition Contest, USA, 1999; 1st Prize at the Ciutat d’Algemesí Composition Contest, Spain, 2000; 1st Prize at the 21st Composition Contest for Original Works for Symphonic Band, first category, Corciano, Italy, 2000; 1st Prize at the Arturo Dúo Vital International Composition Contest, Castro Urdiales, Spain, 2002; 1st Prize at the 8th “Rafael Rodríguez Albert” Band Composition Contest, Alicante, Spain, 2001; Honourable Mention at the 1st International Band Composition Competition Ciudad de Muro, Spain, 2007; Euterpe Award from the Valencian Federation of Musical Societies for Symphonic Composition, 2007; Prize at the 6th Romualdo Marenco International Composition Competition, Novi Ligure, Alessandria, Italy, 2008; 2nd Prize and Frederick Fennell Award at the 2nd Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra Composition Competition, Tokyo, Japan, 2009; 3rd Prize and Audience Award at the Contemporary Music Composition Contest for Band in Harelbeke, Belgium.

He has written music for piano, guitar, choir, chamber ensembles, orchestra, symphonic band, and soloist concertos, among others. His works have been performed throughout various continents, and many have been recorded by renowned soloists and instrumental ensembles. His output reflects different stylistic tendencies, ranging from purely tonal to atonal and modal idioms, the latter being his most commonly used compositional language.

He is a member of the Spanish Society of Authors and Publishers (SGAE) and has served on the juries of numerous national and international competitions for composition and performance. As a conductor, he has led various wind orchestras and instrumental groups in Spain, France, Italy, and the Netherlands.

He belongs to the faculty of Music and Performing Arts and currently teaches Counterpoint and Fugue at the Joaquín Rodrigo Higher Conservatory of Music in Valencia, Spain.




COMPULSORY PIECE: «Ressorgir»

An acronym of a meteorological phenomenon becomes the proper name of a tragedy: LA DANA.

RESSORGIR, through music and in the form of an expressionist programmatic symphony, aims to narrate real events that began on October 29, 2024, and that continue, and will forever remain, linked to many Valencians.

The melodic motif that serves as the guiding thread of the entire symphony is based on the sound generated by assigning a pitch, almost at random, to each of the letters in the word FANG (Mud).

I … amb germanor i solidaritat (Homage to the Volunteers) describes the moment of the tragedy and how the reconstruction of the damage began immediately, with the help of all the volunteers.

The structure of this first movement follows a Sonata Form without development, as each theme evolves continuously. To create the introduction, which depicts the climatic disaster, and the first theme, paying tribute to the volunteers who arrived in L’Horta Sud crossing the Pasarela de la Solidaridad (March of the Volunteers), the fourth mode of limited transposition by O. Messiaen is employed. Some references can be heard to thematic motifs representing certain affected towns, and above all, the main material derived from the word FANG.

The second theme is built through a metamorphosis of Valencian folk material using an octophonic mode, as a homage to the volunteers who helped in the other affected areas.

II- Laments (In memoriam) (Homage to the Victims) evokes remembrance of all those who lost their lives and the helplessness felt in witnessing their disappearance. It is a moment of introspection, respect, and emotion.

The second movement is structured as a superimposition of ternary forms, a nested matryoshka-like design, based on ternary Lied form. The first major section, built from the Locrian mode, unfolds into broad polyphony upon which solo voices emerge as laments. The second section, of a purely contrapuntal nature, is divided into three smaller segments alternating solo passages with grand tutti passages dominated by canonic imitation. A new octophonic mode is filtered both melodically and harmonically through the compositional theories of E. Costère. The third section returns to the material from the first, now varied and presented in retrograde form.

III- com el Fènix (Homage to All the Affected) represents the rebirth of the Valencian people, rebuilding what was lost and facing every adversity without forgetting those who are no longer with us. It seeks to reflect the various struggles each person had to confront and overcome, sometimes with help, and sometimes alone.

This third movement is conceived as a Rondó-Collage, again making use of the fourth mode of limited transposition by O. Messiaen. All the thematic material originates from the principal motif of the work (FANG). Various short thematic fragments are developed and transformed, culminating in a grand Fugue. The symphony concludes with an expansive and majestic final section.
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