Hailed as “one of the best Spanish pianists of our time” (Ritmo,
Madrid), Pedro Carboné is heir to the finest Spanish musical tradition,
passed on to him by his first teachers Pilar Bayona and María Canals.
His interpretation of Albéniz’s Suite Iberia has been praised as “magnificent,
impressive, with the right touch of expression” (ABC, Madrid) and his rendition
of Falla’s Fantasia Baetica is considered a revelation by Spanish music
lovers. Mr. Carboné has given a new meaning to the music of neglected
20th-century Spanish composer Oscar Esplá, whose piano works he recorded
for Marco Polo receiving rave reviews by Fanfare and the American Record Guide.
He has taken Esplá’s music as far as mainland China and performed
his masterpiece Sonata del Sur with the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt
and the “George Enescu” Philharmonic of Bucharest, marking the first
time this piano concerto is heard outside of Spain in fifty years.
Pedro Carboné first came into the spotlight when at age nineteen he
performed Chopin’s Twenty-Four Etudes at the Palau de la Música
in Barcelona. His recording of those works for RCA garnered excellent notices,
placing it among the best ever made (Harmonie-Opéra, Paris). The Washington
Post called him “a major artist” after his Kennedy Center debut
and he has since performed throughout the U.S. to critical and audience acclaim,
and has been featured live repeatedly on National Public Radio’s nationwide
broadcasts. In New York City he has performed at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie
Hall, BAM’s Opera House, Miller Theatre and Merkin Hall and as soloist
with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the American Composers Orchestra and the Perspectives
Ensemble.
In his early twenties, Pedro Carboné was a pupil of the late Eugene
Istomin. He also studied in the U.S. with Leon Fleisher and in Switzerland
with Jean-Bernard Pommier. A remarkable pedagogue himself, Mr. Carboné gives
Master classes every summer at the International Keyboard Festival at Mannes
College of Music in New York and has been invited on several occasions to perform
at the Juilliard School of Music as an authority on the Spanish piano repertoire.
“Pedro Carboné not only brings to Albéniz's Iberia the authority
of an artist who has lived with this monumental score for many years; he has
a probing vision of what this music is about and how it should sound. He feasts
on the complexity of texture, savoring the density of pages other pianists gloss
over. His Iberia is actually unique.”
Joseph Horowitz
Music author and contributor to The New York Times - December, 2003
“Pedro Carboné’s exuberant performance of the Fantasia
Baetica Sunday evening at the National Gallery of Art could hardly have been
better . . . The program opened with Schumann’s Arabesque. Carboné swirled
its counter-currents with a refined touch and unforced spontaneity, bending
tempos pliantly and singing melodies without the artifice of overt interpretation
. . . Carboné played [Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata] with rhythmic
vitality and a relentless, surging energy that kept the music hurtling inevitably
forward.”
Ronald Brown
The Washington Post - May, 2000
“Why is Carboné’s performance of Chopin so commendable?
First, he makes no concession to sentimentality. Second, he is not experimental
or anti-romantic like many other young pianists trying to take a shortcut to
stardom. Third, his technique is more than adequate to fulfill his potential.”
Pedro González Mira
Guía del Ocio de Madrid - September, 1999
“The performances [of Espla’s music] from pianist Pedro Carboné are
extremely fine. His Spanish roots bring a very idiomatic atmosphere to the
music, while technically he has all the equipment for the more demanding sections.
He also has that ability to give the shortest pieces a significant substance.”
David Denton
Fanfare Magazine U.S.A. - January, 1999
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