ITURBI PIANO FESTIVAL PRESENTS THREE PREMIERES BY VALENCIAN COMPOSERS FRANCISCO COLL AND JAVIER COSTA

· Pianist Maria João Pires gave a recital yesterday as part of the Palau de la Música’s season, before an audience of 1,200 people, who gave her long and warm applause in a successful start to the festival

· Coll – “the Spanish composer with the greatest international projection” – premiered Las lógicas exquisitas today, a work commissioned by the festival; and Costa will do so with the pieces Preludios efímeros and Remember me!

· Asturian pianist Noelia Rodiles will offer a programme alternating works by Schubert and Spanish composers David del Puerto and Jesús Rueda at L’Almodí on Sunday at 12 noon

· Liber Quartet, with pianists Carlos Apellániz and Óscar Oliver, along with Javier Eguillor and Jesús Salvador Chapi (percussion), will perform works by Gershwin, Bartók and Stravinsky at La Beneficència on Sunday at 7:30 pm.

· The programme, which continues this weekend and until 4 November, will feature a total of nine concerts with the participation of 25 leading musicians from the national and international scene

Valencia, 29 October 2022

The Iturbi Piano Festival, organised by the Provincial Council of Valencia, kicked off its second edition yesterday with a recital by pianist Maria João Pires, as part of the Palau de la Música’s 2022 Autumn season, at the Auditorium of the Palau de les Arts. The programme, which continues this weekend and until 4 November, will feature a total of nine concerts with 25 leading musicians from the national and international scene. [See attached documentation].

Yesterday, Pires once again fulfilled the expectations of Valencian fans and music lovers, who gave her another warm welcome after her performance just a few days ago, on 19 October, with the Orquestra de València at the Teatro Principal. Some 1,200 people enjoyed a recital in which the Portuguese pianist performed Schubert’s Sonata in A major, opus 120 D 664 and Debussy’s Suite Bergamasque in the first half, followed by Sonata in B flat major, D 960, also by the Austrian composer, in the second half. The long and warm applause prompted an encore with Debussy’s Deux Arabesques L 66, No. 1 Andantino con moto, bringing a successful start to the festival to a close.

Quintetos con piano I, a group formed by Luis Fernando Pérez (piano), Juan Luis Gallego and Santiago Juan (violins), David Fons (viola) and David Apellániz (cello) performed today, Saturday at midday, at the Centre Cultural La Beneficència, performing the world premiere of Las lógicas exquisitas by renowned Valencian composer Francisco Coll, a work commissioned by the Iturbi Piano Festival. The programme also included Schumann and Shostakovich’s Quintets for piano and strings.

The premiere highlighted “that extreme mixture of opposites: fantasy, passion and enchantment” in Coll’s music, as Pablo L. Rodríguez points out. He is the composer with “the greatest international projection”, according to critic Juan Lucas in the programme notes, in which he analyses this piece written in two linked movements: “the first, very lively and active, is a kind of rondo in which the explosive material develops between angular rhythms and insistent patterns. The second, in stark contrast, is a slow aria, contemplative yet highly expressive and intense”.

In the evening, at L’Almodí at 7:30 pm, pianists Bartomeu Jaume and Xavier Torres, with the programme Obra para piano by Javier Costa, will perform the complete piano catalogue of the composer from Paiporta, including two other world premieres: Preludios efímeros and Remember me!, in a concert organised in collaboration with the Palau de la Música Chamber Music Cycle.

Costa points out that the six piano works included in this monographic album “were conceived as intimate music, thought out and recreated in different moods and with different expressive intentions, so that a minimal idea, sometimes a rhythm, a sound or a gesture, sustains the musical discourse, which aims to be austere in its resources and broad in its deployment”. The Valencian musician points out that “Preludios efímeros recreates the resonance of the instrument, which is ephemeral by nature; while Remember me! is inspired by the aria Dido’s Lament from Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas”.

Classical and contemporary repertoire

Asturian pianist Noelia Rodiles will give a recital in which she will alternate works by Schubert (Impromptus and Musical Moments) and Spanish composers David del Puerto, Seis caprichos sin título, and Jesús Rueda, whose Sonata No. 5, “The Butterfly Effect” will close the performance at L’Almodí on Sunday 30 October at 12 noon.

Rodiles is committed to dialogue between the great classical and romantic repertoire and contemporary creation as one of her hallmarks. She has released two albums: the first, featuring works by Ligeti and Schubert, was hailed by critics as “one of the most solid talents in international piano playing”, highlighting her versatility and “admirable musicality and refinement”. Her second album, The Butterfly Effect, won the Melómano de Oro award,

among others, and brings together works by Schumann, Schubert and Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Rueda, Del Puerto and a recording of a piece by Joan Magrané that was nominated for a Latin Grammy Award.

The Liber Quartet, formed by pianists Carlos Apellániz and Óscar Oliver, Javier Eguillor (timpani and percussion) and Jesús Salvador Chapi (percussion), will perform George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and works by Bartók (Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion) and Stravinsky, whose version for two pianos was prepared by the composer himself from The Rite of Spring (Centre Cultural La Beneficència, 30 October at 7:30 pm).

Gershwin’s rhapsody is a version for two pianos by Apellániz and Oliver, “as a tribute to the siblings José and Amparo Iturbi, who were the first to perform it at Carnegie Hall in 1938”, notes Martín Llade in the programme notes, lamenting the fact that the score has not been preserved, although “there are some recordings of the two of them performing it”. The pianists emphasise that “there is frequent concertante dialogue, but not in the classical sense of piano and orchestra”, and confess that they wanted to introduce more playfulness into the arrangement, giving it a genuinely jazzy feel.

Upcoming concerts

Upcoming concerts will feature Moscow-born Yulianna Avdeeva at the Centre Cultural La Beneficència on Monday 31 October at 7:30 pm. The programme Quintetos con piano II with pianist Carles Marín, Roberto Turlo (oboe), Vicente Alberola (clarinet), Salvador Sanchis (bassoon) and María Rubio (horn) will be performed in the same venue on Wednesday 2 November at 7:30 pm.

The eighth event of the festival will be in collaboration with the Palau de la Música, and will feature the Orquestra de València, conducted by Manuel Hernández Silva, performing with pianists Carlos Apellániz, Claudio Carbó, María Linares, Óscar Oliver and Xavier Torres, as well as Diego Ares (harpsichord) and Antonio Simón (fortepiano and piano) at the Teatre Principal, on Thursday 3 November at 7:30 pm.

Josep Colom

In the final concert, on Friday 4 November at L’Almodí at 7:30 pm, Catalan pianist Josep Colom will close the festival with works by Franck, Stravinsky, Falla, Chopin and Iturbi. Tickets for the concerts are free of charge until full capacity is reached. They can be obtained on the website www.entradesvalencia.com, at the Centre Cultural La Beneficència and, for the concerts in collaboration with the Palau de la Música, on its own website.

The Iturbi Piano Festival, under the artistic direction of Justo Romero, is supported by Valencia City Council, the Palau de la Música, the Valencian Institute of Culture through the

Deputy Directorate of Music and Popular Culture, the Royal Academy of Spain in Rome, attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía and the Festival Piano aux Jacobins; and takes place at different venues in the city of Valencia (Teatre Principal, Palau de les Arts, Centre Cultural la Beneficència and L’Almodí).

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