– The renowned Basque conductor leads the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana this Saturday 27th March at the Palau de les Arts (Valencia) and on Sunday 28th at the Auditori de Castelló.

– Three of the most renowned Italian batons, Antonello Manarcorda, Fabio Luisi and Daniele Gatti, will close ‘Les Arts és Simfònic’.

-Juanjo Mena conducts works by Arriaga and Schubert, with the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana and soprano Sabina Puértolas as soloist, this weekend in Valencia and Castelló.

The prestigious Basque conductor is immersed in the final stages of the programme, with which he returns to the Arts 14 years later. Renowned for his extensive international career, Juanjo Mena has worked with the most renowned orchestras, including Cleveland, the French National Orchestra, the Gewandhaus and the Berlin, London and New York Philharmonic Orchestras. Les Arts brings back this concert, which had to be postponed last season due to the health emergency.

The principal conductor of the Cincinnati May Festival was one of the first batutes with whom the OCV worked in its first year of life. Mena made his debut in 2007 with a programme entitled ‘Visions del segle XXI’, introducing composers such as Albéniz, Fernández-Arbós, Béla Bartok and César Cano into the repertoire of the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana.

For his return, he focuses on two important figures of early romanticism: Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga, still unpublished in the repertoire of the OCV, and Franz Schubert.

Known as the ‘Spanish Mozart’, Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga (1806-1826) was a precocious genius who, although he died at the age of only 19, left an important musical testimony. After the overture to ‘Los esclavos felices’, Arriaga’s lyrical facet will be the focus of the first part of the concert, with the dramatic cantata for soprano and orchestra ‘Herminie’ and the aria ‘Hymen! viens dissiper une vaine frayeur’ from the opera ‘Médée’, performed by the soprano Sabina Puértolas.

As a finale to the concert, Juanjo Mena proposes one of the great works of the symphonic repertoire, the last symphony that Franz Schubert composed, ‘La Gran’, so called because of its duration and majesty, and a precursor of the new Romantic airs.

Juanjo Mena conducts the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana this Saturday, March 27th, at 19.00 h, in the Auditori del Palau de les Arts. One day later, the OCV will present the same programme at the Auditori i Palau de Congressos de Castelló at 7.30 pm. For more information, please consult Les Arts – Un camí d’emocions i IVC (gva.es).

Les Arts és Simfònic

Three of the most outstanding conductors on the international scene will close ‘Les Arts és Simfònic’: Antonello Manacorda (28 and 29 May 2021), Fabio Luisi (19 June 2021) and Daniele Gatti (1 July 2021).

Juanjo Mena

Juanjo Mena is one of the most renowned Spanish conductors on the international circuit. Principal Conductor of the Cincinnati May Festival, he has previously been Principal Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and the Carlo Felice Theatre in Genoa, as well as Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra.

He conducts prestigious ensembles, including the Berlin, London, La Scala, Oslo and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestras; the symphony orchestras of the Bavarian Radio, Bamberg, Swedish Radio, Danish National and NHK in Tokyo, as well as the National Orchestra of France, the Berlin Konzerthausorchester, the Tonhalle in Zurich and the Gewandhaus in Leipzig.

He is also invited by the most important North American ensembles, such as the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Montreal, Pittsburgh and Toronto; the philharmonic orchestras of New York and Los Angeles, and the orchestras of Cleveland, Minnesota, Philadelphia and Washington. He appears regularly at the helm of the Boston Symphony, both in its concert season and at the Tanglewood Festival.

As an opera conductor, he tackles titles from the romantic repertoire, such as ‘Der fliegende Holländer’, ‘Salome’, ‘Elektra’, ‘Ariadne auf Naxos’, ‘The Castle of Barbazul’ and ‘Erwartung’, as well as productions of ‘Yevgueni Oneguin’ in Genoa, ‘La vida breve’ in Madrid, ‘Le nozze di Figaro’ in Lausanne or ‘Billy Budd’ and ‘Fidelio’ in Bilbao.

Overture from Los esclavos felices

Herminie*
Cantata for soprano and orquestra

“Hymen! viens dissiper une vaine frayeur” from Médée*

Franz Schubert 1797 – 1828

Symphony No. 9, D 944, in C major, “The Great”

Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana