Marco Gomez

My education: Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen,. Michigan with Thomas Riccobono, Jonathan Lombardo, and Matthew Lyon. The Juilliard School in New York City with Denson Paul Pollard, Blair Bollinger, and Joseph Alessi. Hochschule für Künste Bern with Ian Bousfield.

My favourite musical compositions:

Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Rhapsody in Blue, and his piano works.
Monteverdi’s Madrigals
Wagner’s Lohengrin
Bach’s Keyboard and Choral music
Puccini’s Turandot and Tosca

My greatest musical experiences: Among many, performing for Barack and Michele Obama in my high school gym with the marching band and me dancing around, playing sousaphone.

Some years later, getting to be onstage with pianist Denis Matsuev and Valery Gergiev, playing Rachmaninoff 3rd Piano Concerto in the Tivoli Concert hall on a summer weekday, where there were barely 200 people in the audience.
Of all the concerts on our European tour, he played by far his most intense and gripping version that day. He then followed the concerto with 45 minutes of different encores, including Rhapsody in Blue with an improvised pre- and postlude.

My most memorable experience in the Kapel: Absolutely getting to perform for Queen Margrethe’s 50-year jubilee concert. Just at the beginning of my first season in the orchestra, getting to stand on stage at Gamle Scene to open the concert with a brass fanfare in front of all the monarchs of Scandinavia was exhilarating. We performed an incredible program after that with Marie Jacquot, all broadcasted live for all of my people outside of Denmark to see!

When I’m not playing in the Kapel: I enjoy cycling around Copenhagen and get to know new neighborhoods and take in the sights from the city’s bridges, and sometimes bathing in the harbour. Otherwise I love tasting new foods from different places and enjoying them with company.