The Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana concludes its first major international tour with great success in Munich

Valencia (March 25, 2009). The Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana (OCV), under the baton of its music director Lorin Maazel, concluded its first major international tour last night at the Philharmonie im Gasteig auditorium in Munich, Germany. The resident orchestra of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, which began its tour on March 19 in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, also visited the German cities of Essen, Mannheim, and Regensburg.

With a program complex in its execution and composed of works from the Russian, French and Spanish repertoire, the OCV has garnered praise from the public and critics who have filled the different halls and aroused the interest of leading figures in the culture of each of the cities in which it has performed.

Specifically, at her last concert in Munich, personalities such as the ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, considered one of the most important ballerinas of the 20th century, prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Ballet of Moscow and former director of the National Lyric Ballet of Spain, and the composer Rodion Shchedrin, one of the heavyweights of Russian musical culture and for whom Lorin Maazel has premiered several of his works with the New York Philharmonic, attended the concert.

The program, consisting of Modest Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain, Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Suite No. 3 in G major, Opus 55, Joaquín Rodrigo's Homage to La Tempranica, Paul Dukas's The Sorcerer's Apprentice, and Maurice Ravel's La valse, received a standing ovation from the audience at the Philharmonie im Gasteig, to which the resident orchestra of the Palau de les Arts paid tribute with two encores by the Sevillian Gerónimo Giménez and Georges Bizet.

As the Director of the Palau de les Arts, Helga Schmidt, indicated after the last concert of the OCV in Munich, the tour has been a great success that has allowed the international public to experience the high quality of the orchestral group of the Valencian opera center, which national and international critics already place as one of the reference groups in the European musical scene.

The Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana has also featured Russian pianist Arkadi Volodos for the performances in Abu Dhabi, Essen and Mannheim, with whom they have performed Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3, Op. 30 in D minor, one of the most difficult works in the piano repertoire.

Third international foray

The tour of the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana through the United Arab Emirates and Germany has marked the third international foray of the resident ensemble of the Valencian opera house.

Already in the first season of the Palau de les Arts, the orchestra conducted by Lorin Maazel made a successful debut at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, one of the most emblematic opera houses in Europe, where it garnered unanimous applause from critics and the public.

At the end of last season, under the baton of Alberto Zedda, now director of the Centre de Perfeccionament Plácido Domingo, the OCV, together with tenor Juan Diego Flórez, soprano Julia Lezhneva, and the Prague Chamber Choir, inaugurated the Rossini Festival in the Italian city of Pesaro. The audience at this event, considered a highlight of the summer festival calendar, gave the ensemble, conducted by Maestro Lorin Maazel, a fifteen-minute standing ovation.