“Sunlight in Iberia!”

Thinking of Spain inevitably conjures images of bright sunshine, dramatic architecture and deeply sensory traditions. When Gabriela Montero opens Portland Piano International’s 49th season on October 25, she takes her listeners on a journey through the Iberian peninsula’s rich and pluralistic history in a program that spans the gamut of human emotion and experience: the Baroque sonatas of Scarlatti and Soler flashing like a plucked guitar, Albéniz’s flamenco swagger, the “music of silence” of Frederic Mompou and Alicia de Larrocha, and Liszt’s Spanish Rhapsody gathering light and shadow into one dazzling arc. Born in Caracas, Montero plays this music in her mother tongue — and, as one of the world’s great improvisers, she gives it a spark of the spontaneous, so masterworks you may think you know arrive freshly felt, never museum-kept.

A Latin GRAMMY winner praised by The New York Times for “crackling rhythmic brio, subtle shadings, steely power,” Montero appears with the world’s leading orchestras and brings this all-Iberian program to Portland the same season it travels to London’s Barbican and New York’s 92NY. This is Portland’s doorway to the transformative power of live solo piano — and in a hall this size, you’ll feel every degree of it. Join us on October 25.

Program

Domenico Scarlatti
Sonata in C-Sharp Minor, K. 247 

Antonio Soler
Sonata in C-Sharp Minor, R. 21 

Antonio Soler
Sonata in G Major, R. 45 

Domenico Scarlatti
Sonata in G Major, K. 427 

Frédéric Chopin
Scherzo op 39 No. 3 in C Sharp Minor 

Enrique Granados
8 Valses Poéticos 

Isaac Albéniz
“Triana” from Iberia, Book II

–– Intermission ––

Isaac Albéniz
“Sevilla” from Suite española, Op. 47

Frédéric Chopin
Bolero, Op. 19 

Alicia De Larrocha
Sueño Infantil

Alicia De Larrocha
Minué Triste

Frederic Mompou
Cançó i dansa No. 6 

Frédéric Chopin
Prelude, Op. 28, No. 15

Enrique Granados
“Andaluza” from 12 Danzas españolas, Op. 37 

Franz Liszt
Spanish Rhapsody