Two New Piano Projects for 3 Pianos & Four Hands

New Recordings from Zeynep Ucbasaran, Miguel Ortega Chavaldas, and Sergio Gallo

Divine Art has announced two linked but very different new albums of piano music. The first comprises recordings of recent works for three pianos by an international group of composers from the USA, Spain, Italy, Brazil and Turkey. Though modernist, the works are also accessible and generally tonal with a rich and deep textured sound from the combined voices of the three grand pianos. The program includes the award –winning “Inni” (Hymn) by Luigi Dallapiccola together with works by Ince and Saygun, and pieces by other composers which have been commissioned by the trio and which are thus receiving their first recordings. The performers are Zeynep Ucbasaran, Miguel Ortega Chavaldas and Sergio Gallo, together ‘The 3-Piano Project’. Ucbasaran, based in California, is the ‘leader among equals’ in the group. She has made several highly-praised recordings previously for Naxos and Eroica.

As a counterpoint to this pioneering program, Ucbasaran and Gallo have recorded a second album – this time for four hands at one piano – of popular and well-loved works in splendid dynamic performances. The major work is Milhaud’s homage to Brazilian music with touches of jazz, ‘Le boeuf sur le toit’ and operatic themes and folk-inspired dances. Both recordings were completed at the Music Academy of the West, in Santa Barbara, California, in the latter half of 2019 and are scheduled for release in the summer of 2020.

Divine Art DDA 25207 ‘The Three-Piano Project’

Artists: Zeynep Ucbasaran, Miguel Ortega Chavaldas and Sergio Gallo (pianos)

Works:

• Idea Cells (Server Acim) *
• S’io esca vivo (If I escape alive) (Edson Zampronha) *
• Poem, Op. 73 (Adnan Saygun) *
• Petit Nocturne Noire (José Zárate) *
• Requiem for Mehmet (Kamran Ince) *
• Inni (Luigi Dallapiccola)
• (*world premiere recordings)

Divine Art DDA 25208 Music for Four Hands at One piano (album title not yet determined)

Artists: Zeynep Ucbasaran and Sergio Gallo (piano duet)

Works:

• Two episodes from Lenau’s Faust, S.599 (Franz Liszt)
• Slavonic Dances from Op. 48 – Nos. 1,2 & 8 (Antonín Dvořák)
• Love Song from Faust (Charles Gounod; arr. H. Englemann)
• Jocelyn – Berceuse (Benjamin Godard)Carmen – Overture (Georges Bizet)
• Faust – Waltz (Charles Gounod; arr, W.P. Mero)
• Le bœuf sur le toit (Darius Milhaud)

SHORT BIOGRAPHIES

Zeynep Ucbasaran made her Wigmore Hall debut in November 2004. She has recorded many albums, including music of Liszt, Schubert, Scarlatti, Beethoven, Bernstein and Muczynsjki. Most recently she recorded the piano music of Saygun (Naxos) and the complete piano sonatas of Mozart (Eroica Classical).

Dr. Sergio Gallo has won the piano concerto competitions of both the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra (Brazil) and the University Symphony, Santa Barbara (USA). He has performed with orchestras throughout the Americas and in Turkey, as well as broadcasting on Radio France and Radio Cultura. He now lives in the USA where he teaches at Georgia State University in Atlanta and Rocky Ridge Music Academy in Estes Park, Colorado.

Miguel A. Ortega Chavaldas was born in Las Palmas on the Canary Islands and studied in Spain under Almudena Cano. He was awarded a first-class diploma in Piano and the highest prize in Chamber Music. Mr Ortega Chavaldas is currently Professor of Piano at the Conservatorio Superior de Aragón in Zaragoza, Spain, and also a collaborating pianist at Reina Sofia Academy in Madrid.