FRANCISCO CABAN
Francisco Cabán combines his career as professor, chamber, and orchestral musician with solo appearances. In both solo and chamber music performances, Francisco has played for audiences at the Casals Festival, Inter-American Festival of the Arts, Clazz International Music Festival (Italy), and FOOSA (California).
In his capacity as Professor of Violin and Chamber Music at the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, he has created both the Violin and the Strings Festival. Renowned artists and professors, such as Guillermo Figueroa, Federico Agostini, José Francisco del Castillo, Sergiu Schwartz, Nancy Zhou, Miroslav Hristov, the Harlem String Quartet, and Members of the Catalyst Quartet, among others, have participated in them.
A dedicated and sought-after teacher, several of Dr. Cabán students have performed as soloists with orchestras, won regional competitions, and gone on to earn scholarships at schools such as: the Cleveland Institute of Music, Indiana University, University of Michigan, Bard College, and Lynn University. Moreover, many of his former pupils are now members of the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra.
In 2015, with colleagues Diana Figueroa, and Luis Miguel Rojas, he founded the Sanromá Piano Trio, an ensemble-in-residence at the Puerto Rico Conservatory. They have performed cycles of the Beethoven and Brahms trios, as well as works by Arensky, Shostakovich, Mendelssohn, Turina, Piazzolla, and contemporary composers.
As soloist, he has collaborated with maestros Maximiano Valdés, Roselín Pabón, and Guido López Gavilán, among others, in orchestras from Puerto Rico, México, Cuba, and the US. He is currently 3rd Chair of the first violins section of the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, an ensemble where he has been Assistant Concertmaster during the 1997-98 and 2015-16 seasons. His concerto repertoire includes works from Bach to Shostakovich.
In addition to his concerts and teaching posts in Puerto Rico, Cabán has conducted workshops, master classes, and recitals at universities in the US, Cuba, México, Venezuela, and Peru. He is on the faculty of FOOSA in Fresno, California. He has collaborated with the Clazz Music Festival in Arcidosso, Italy, and the Killington Music Festival in Vermont.
Dr. Cabán studied violin and chamber music at the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music with professors José Figueroa and Joaquín Vidaechea. Later on, he pursued graduate studies in the United States, where he obtained a master's degree from Temple University in Philadelphia and a doctorate in violin performance from the University of Texas at Austin, with professors Helen Kwalwasser and Eugene Gratovich. He also attended masterclasses in Europe with Gerárd Poulet, Valery Klimov, Midori, and José Luis García Asencio.
In his award-winning record productions, Ola nocturna and Ola diurna, Cabán, together with distinguished pianist Ivonne Figueroa, Brazilian violinist Cármelo de los Santos, and US pianist Kevin Class, has captured important works from the Latin American repertoire for violin and piano.
Mr. Cabán performs on two violins (2010, 2018) by renowned Spanish luthier Álvaro Corrochano, and has a selection of bows from master makers Albert Nürnberger, Victor Fétique, and Eugène Sartory.