Rafael Payare conducts Ginastera, López, Villa-Lobos, and Ravel — With Javier Perianes

The Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and their music director, Venezuelan maestro Rafael Payare, join forces with Spanish pianist Javier Perianes for a musical journey through South America with works by Alberto Ginastera of Argentina, Jimmy López Bellido of Peru, and Heitor Villa-Lobos of Brazil, plus the Spanish-flavored Boléro by Maurice Ravel!

Opening the program are Ginastera’s Variaciones concertantes, composed in 1953 when political disputes with the Perón government forced him to resign from his music directorship at the Conservatory in La Plata. Written during his second stylistic period of "subjective nationalism," the variations weave traditional Argentinian melodies into Ginastera's own musical style, crafting a vibrant instrumental soundscape. At the heart of this concert lies the Montreal premiere of Jimmy López Bellido’s piano concerto Ephemerae, a palette of perfumes, from floral tones to dark woodlands, transposed into a tableau of vibrant orchestral colors to mirror the piano's unwavering energy. Next up is Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasileiras No. 8, a blend of Brazilian folk music and European classical tradition by "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music." To wrap up the program, the orchestra perform Ravel’s iconic Boléro, built on a consistent snare-drum rhythm and a relentless melody introduced by the oboe d’amore. Though Ravel openly described it as "an experiment in a very special and limited direction," it stands as one of his most popular and enduring works.