YOUNG TALENTS

The new winner of the 2017 Maria Canals Piano Competition, Levon Avagyan, is presented at this concert. The competition is sponsored by Fundación Jesús Serra and is an annual milestone in the orchestra’s programme. José Luis Gómez Ríos, after being one of their concertinos for a few years, is conducting the orchestra for the first time. He was awarded first prize at the Sir Georg Solti International Conductors’ Competition in Frankfurt in 2010. Since then, Gómez Ríos has had the chance to stand on the podium of groups such as Houston Symphony Orchestra, Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, or Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. The core of the programme and an excellent way for the piano to stand out are S. Rajmaninof’s celebrated Rhapsodies on a theme of Paganini. It was finished as late as 1934, and it is made up of twenty-four variations, which many consider to be his fifth and last concerto.