Jul 06, 2017 at 12:05 pm

MEET THE MUSICIANS: Pianist, arranger, composer GUSTAVO CORRALES ROMERO

Update posted by KyG Productions Karen Russel and Gustavo Corrales Romero


Gustavo Corrales Romero has enjoyed 17 years of professional musical training in the solid tradition of the Russian school for piano since he was 7. Winning a national competition in Cuba at age 18, having concluded studies at the Escuela Nacional de Arte (ENA)1, enabled him to study at the P.I. Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow for one year. After this he returned to Cuba to complete, at the age of 24, his studies with a Master Degree in Music, specializing in Piano at the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) in Havana, where he stayed on as a professor of Piano and Chamber Music for three years.

Corrales has a special passion for contemporary music. In addition to his annual participation in the International Festival for Contemporary Music in Cuba, in 1997 he co-founded the Association for the Development of Musical Contemporary Art (SODAMC), a UNESCO-sponsored association that organized monthly meetings in Havana which included concerts, expositions and conferences, providing a platform for composers, interpreters, musicologists and visual artists; a highly applauded effort that rapidly became a significant part of the Cuban art scene. Corrales performed in all concerts.

Public performances were begun at the age of 16. Over the years Corrales acquired a vast amount of podium experience through participation in many national and international festivals and as a concert pianist in South America, the Caribbean and several countries in Europe, especially in The Netherlands where he has been living and working with his wife since 2002. He has his own production company, KyG Productions, with which he has been producing CDs, books and concerts and promoting classical and contemporary Latin American music for years.

Corrales has a special bond with several of the Cuban contemporary composers whose work he plays including his teachers and later colleagues Harold Gramatges (winner of the Spanish ‘Tomás Luis de Victoria’ prize for music in 1997) and Carlos Fariñas and the younger Keyla Orozco (USA), Eduardo Morales (Spain), Yosvani Quintero (Switzerland) and Ailem Carvajal (Italy).

His debut as a writer, ‘Los Herederos’, written in Spanish, was accepted for publication with great enthusiasm by Ediciones EntreRíos and presented at the Miami Book Fair International. In the meantime Corrales has finished his 2nd book, which is being readied for publication. After solo CD productions Palimpsesto (An evolution of the Cuban piano) and Fresco (A wide impression of Latin American classical and contemporary music) preparations are underway to produce Arioso, featuring Corrales’ suite of arrangements for piano trio of traditional Cuban songs.

www.gustavocorralesromero.com


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