James Gaffigan and Javier Perianes return to Les Arts with works Ravel, Franck and Coll

• Les Arts premieres in Spain 'City Without Sleep', a work commissioned by Les Arts from the Valencian Francisco Coll, which has received critical acclaim.
• The program includes Ravel's demanding 'Piano Concerto' and his essential 'La Valse' along with Franck's symphonic poem 'Le Chasseur maudit'

Valencia (14.11.24). The Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía closes its 2024 symphonic program this Friday, December 20, in the Auditori with Javier Perianes and the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana (OCV) under the direction of James Gaffigan.

On the music stand are pages by Maurice Ravel, César Franck, as well as 'City Without Sleep' by the Valencian Francisco Coll, a work commissioned by the Valencian opera house together with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Basel Symphony Orchestra, which is premiering in Spain.

Javier Perianes, the most internationally renowned Spanish pianist of his generation, to whom Coll himself dedicates the work, performs this 'fantasy for piano and orchestra' with the OCV, whose presentation in London received praise from major British newspapers such as The Guardian, The Times and the Financial Times.

The program includes another piece reserved for true keyboard virtuosos like Perianes himself: Ravel's 'Piano Concerto in G major'; the last great work of the brilliant composer of the famous 'Bolero', energetic and optimistic, which draws on the influence of jazz that the Frenchman discovered in the United States.

The French repertoire will be the main focus of Les Arts' last symphonic performance in 2024, in which James Gaffigan and the Les Arts resident orchestra will also perform 'La Valse', a score that Ravel dedicated to the imperial Vienna of Strauss's waltzes and which, in 2022, became the most performed work in the world's great concert halls, along with Franck's fascinating symphonic poem 'Le Chasseur maudit'.