Bio
Esteban Batallán was born in Barro (Pontevedra) Spain in 1983. He began his musical studies at the age of seven at the School of Music in his hometown. He continued his studies at the Conservatories of Music in Pontevedra and Vigo under the supervision of Maestro Javier Viceiro.
In 1999, he entered the School of Musical Studies of Galicia, where he participated in masterclasses with Javier Simó. In 2000, he was selected to be a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Spain (JONDE), where he remained until 2003. In 2002 he won the audition for Principal Trumpet in the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, a position he held until September 2018. In 2018, he won the principal trumpet position in Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and in 2019, Riccardo Muti appointed Esteban Batallan Principal Trumpet of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Esteban is the winner of several national and international competitions, among them Competition Jeunesses Musicales of Spain, 2001; National Contest Yamaha Xeno, 2002; European Competition Jeunesses Musicales International, 2002; Yamaha International Competitions, 2003, among others. In 2006, Esteban was awarded the Fourth Prize at the International Competition Ville de Paris Maurice André.
He has performed as principal trumpet with many orchestras in Spain and internationally, including the Orchestra of Teatro alla Scala, English Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, Gstaad Festival Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra of India, Basel Sinfonieorchester, Royal Symphony Orchestra of Seville, Symphony Orchestra of Galicia, Orchestra of Spanish Radio Television, National Orchestra of Porto, Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, among others.
As a soloist he has played with Ensemble Orchestral of Paris, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Orchestra of Radio Spanish Television, Gstaad Festival Orchestra, Orchestra of Cordoba, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, Geneva Camerata, Concerto Grosso Frankfurt, National Youth Orchestra of Spain, Philharmonic Orchestra of Pontevedra, and Symphony Orchestra of India in works by Haydn, Hummel, Tomasi, Aroutunian, Jolivet, and Bach’s Brandenburg, among others.
During this time he has worked under the direction of such great conductors as Riccardo Muti, Jaap van Zweden, Riccardo Chailly, Zubin Metha, Bernard Haitink, Daniele Gatti, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Alan Gilbert, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Michel Plasson, Gerd Albrecht, Tom Kopmann, and Jesús López Cobos, among others.
In the field of education, he was the trumpet teacher for 16 years at the Young Academy of the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, and is often invited to be professor of the National Youth Orchestra of Spain and the Youth Orchestra of Andalusia. He has also given masterclasses throughout the world. Among the most recent ones, highlights are 24º Edicion Festival de Puglia (Italia), VI Festival Hercules Brass (España), Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and Associazione Musicale Giuseppe Verdi di Sant’Agata di Militello. Esteban was a member of the trumpet faculty of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University from 2020 – 2022, prior to joining DePaul University School of Music’s trumpet faculty.