On January 31 and February 1, 2026, El León de Oro, conducted by its founder Marco Antonio García de Paz, took part in the 4th Atrium Musicae Festival in Cáceres.
In the March issue of RITMO magazine, music journalist and critic Javier Extremera described the experience as follows.
Glorious Polyphony
Listening to Tomás Luis de Victoria inside a church is akin to hearing Parsifal at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth. Rarely has music been so intimately bound to architecture. Penetrating mysticism, restrained expressiveness, searing chromaticism and those extraordinary chiaroscuro textures blended seamlessly within the walls of the Co-Cathedral of Santa María through the Officium Defunctorum, written for the funeral rites of Empress María of Austria.
Two ensembles of profound and almost ecstatic musicality brought the work vividly to life: El León de Oro, under Marco Antonio García de Paz—a marvel of blend and precision—and Schola Antiqua, directed by Juan Carlos Asensio, entrusted with unfolding the plainchant.
This is music that pierces the flesh, tightening the heart and leaving some of us hovering a few centimetres above the ground.
García de Paz and his “Lions” returned the following day at the Church of Santiago Apóstol with a superb polyphonic programme, where Renaissance works by Victoria and Palestrina were fruitfully interwoven with choral music by contemporary composers such as Arvo Pärt, Lorenzo Donati, and Eric Whitacre.
Sight and sound seemed to merge into a single sense capable of transporting the listener to another dimension: ecstatic wonder, majestic singing, harmony and balance; the grounding power of the basso continuo; the luminous consonance of major scales and the celestial radiance of Palestrina and Victoria—including a magnificent Nunc dimittis. All this intertwined with the existential intensity, minor modes, obsessive ostinatos, organ-like resonances and the constant search for the divine halo present in the music of Pärt and his contemporaries.
An experience to remember for a lifetime.
We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Javier Extremera, journalist and music critic, and to RITMO magazine for such a beautiful review and for featuring our work in their prestigious publication.
You can read the full article at the following link: