Omer Meir Wellber opens the Palau de les Arts symphony season with works from the Russian repertoire

•Zubin Mehta, Plácido Domingo and the young Andrea Battistoni and Christian Vásquez headline the subscription concerts at the arts center

Valencia (11-11-11).- Omer Meir Wellber, musical director of the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, opens the 2011-2012 symphonic season of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía tomorrow, Saturday, November 12, at the Auditori.

The Russian repertoire, which has opened the opera season with Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov , dominates the program for this first subscription concert at the arts center. On the program are works by Mikhail Glinka, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky.

The evening will begin with one of the Slavic pieces inspired by Spanish culture, Glinka's Jota Aragonesa . This will be followed by Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1 with Giorgi Anichenko as soloist. Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 will close the program.

Leading conductors from around the world will grace the podium of the Auditori in the Palau de les Arts' sixth season. Alongside the principal conductor of the OCV, renowned figures such as Zubin Mehta, Valery Gergiev, Riccardo Chailly, Plácido Domingo, and rising stars like Andrea Battistoni and Christian Vásquez will lead the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, which this year presents a diverse program of symphonic and operatic works in concert versions.

Omer Meir Wellber takes over the direction of the Christmas concert for the first time this year, which will be held on December 22, with the works Violin Concerto, K219 and Coronation Mass by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Misa criolla by the Argentine Ariel Ramírez.

The Palau de les Arts' Symphony Season welcomes Zubin Mehta, president of the Festival del Mediterrani, for the first time, marking a significant increase in his involvement in the cultural center's artistic activities this year. The Indian maestro will conduct the world premiere of César Cano's Concerto for Orchestra, Opus 73, on February 11th, in an evening that will also feature Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 8. Mehta and the OCV will embark on a new tour that same month, bringing this program to Castelló de la Plana, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

Following his acclaimed debut with the Valencia Orchestra (OCV) conducting Berlioz's Les Troyens , Valery Gergiev returns to Valencia to lead the Palau de les Arts' resident orchestra, the only Spanish orchestra he conducts. Gergiev will present two symphonic performances of Hector Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette on December 8 and 9. The principal conductor of the Mariinsky Theatre will also lead the OCV in its premiere at the Teatro Real in Madrid with this same program.

On December 16 and 18, Riccardo Chailly, from Milan, principal conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and one of the most sought-after conductors of the moment, will make his debut with the resident orchestra of the arts center with the concert version of Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss.

On January 25th, the young Andrea Battistoni will take the baton at the Auditori. The Italian conductor, considered by critics to be one of the rising stars of the music scene, will present a program with a distinctly Italian character, featuring the overtures to Giuseppe Verdi's Luisa Miller and I vespri siciliani, and Giacomo Puccini's I crisantemi and Symphonic Prelude in A major. To close the evening, the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, under Battistoni's direction, will perform Antonín Dvořák's Eighth Symphony.

Christian Vázquez, one of Venezuela's most internationally acclaimed conductors, joins the growing list of promising new conductors with whom the OCV has collaborated this March. The new music director of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra will present the audience with Francisco Llácer Pla's Rondo Mirmidon. Following this, the Palau de les Arts' resident orchestra will perform two works by Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto, Op. 35 , and Symphony No. 5 .

Plácido Domingo has become another of the major stars increasing his participation in Valencia's 2011-2012 program. In addition to singing in Massenet's Thaïs and conducting performances of Tosca , as well as the concert version of Le Cid, the singer and conductor will take to the podium at the Auditori for the concert on April 26. Domingo will perform a program featuring Beethoven's Coriolanus, Op. 62, Antonín Dvořák's Cello Concerto, Op. 104 , and Manuel de Falla's The Three-Cornered Hat .