Roc Fargas i Castells, originally from Barcelona, is a scholarship holder of the Conducting Forum of the German Music Council. After studying musicology at the University of Cambridge, he completed a master’s degree in historical performance practice and orchestral conducting at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Prof. Sian Edwards. He received prestigious scholarships from Banco Sabadell, the British Spanish Society, and the Royal Academy of Music. He then moved to Germany to complete his Konzertexamen in orchestral conducting under the guidance of Prof. Nicolás Pasquet and Ekhart Wycik at the Franz Liszt University of Music in Weimar.
Fargas conducted remarkable performances of Spanish repertoire in the United Kingdom and India in collaboration with the Instituto Cervantes. He also premiered the opera “María Soliña” by Nacho Mañá in Spain. In April 2022, he led the premiere of six new compositions as part of a contemporary music project with the Franz Liszt University of Music and the Manhattan School of Music in New York. Since 2023, Fargas has been traveling regularly to Ukraine to support the current situation with music, bringing a bit of joy and normality. He conducted the Kyiv Camerata at the Kyiv Philharmonic and at the opening of the Kharkiv Music Festival 2024, as well as in a joint project with the Germany-based Ukrainian orchestra Mriya.
Fargas has conducted orchestras such as the Staatskapelle Weimar, the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Jena Philharmonie, Anhalt Philharmonie Dessau, Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz, Philharmonie Südwestfalen, Erzgebirgische Philharmonie, Thüringer Philharmonie, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Sinfonia Rotterdam, and the Hradec Králové Philharmonic. He has assisted conductors such as Juanjo Mena, Sir Mark Elder, Vitali Alekseenok, and Simon Gaudenz at the Bamberger Symphoniker, BBC Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Landesjugendorchester Hessen, and others. As a Baroque violist, Fargas has worked with distinguished ensembles such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Academy of Ancient Music, Florilegium and the Bach Choir. A former member of the London Symphony Chorus, Choeur de l’Orchestre de Paris and the Kammerchor Weimar, Fargas has performed with renowned artists such as Sir Simon Rattle, Klaus Mäkelä and Ton Koopman, performing at prestigious venues worldwide.
