Ravel & Gershwin

Stéphane Denève leads the Dallas Symphony Orchestra at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center on November 12 and 13, 2026, with pianist Cédric Tiberghien taking the solo. It's a program that pairs Gershwin's American jazz with French elegance, and it's built around two very different ways of looking at Paris.

An American in Paris is the one most of us know. It follows a tourist dodging taxis along the Champs-Élysées, partying in the city's dance halls and feeling pangs of homesickness. On the other side is Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D Major, written for a pianist who lost his right arm in the First World War. It opens with deep, sinister sounds before building to a madcap, brassy march, and Tiberghien handles the solo part—Le Soir described him as "a magician with poetic clarity."

Rounding out the evening are two kaleidoscopic ballet scores by Roussel and Milhaud. Roussel's Suite No. 2 from Bacchus et Ariane and Milhaud's La Création du monde trace mythological tales of love, forgiveness and the creation of the world. Between the jazz, the concerto and the ballet suites, the program covers a lot of ground in one night.

Both performances start at 7:30 PM. If you want to get a bit more context before the music starts, the Performance Preludes—pre-concert talks with Assistant Conductor Shira Samuels-Shragg—run at 6:30 PM each evening and at 1:00 PM on Sunday in Horchow Hall. Tickets start at $38.