Presenting Pietro de Maria (2001) (CD)

Pietro De Maria is one of the shining lights of the next generation of great pianists. He makes his VAI Audio debut with a program of works by Scarlatti, Schubert ("Wanderer Fantasy"), Liszt (two Sonetti, Reminiscences de Don Juan), and a Chopin Polonaise.
[2001, Stereo, 72 minutes]

"He has the pianistic resources to do anything he wants to. Everything sang and breathed... utterly haunting."- Boston Globe

D. Scarlatti: Sonata in E minor, K 394/L 275
D. Scarlatti: Sonata in A major, K 39/L 391
Schubert: "Wanderer" Fantasy, D 760/Op. 15
Liszt: Sonetti del Petrarca (from Années de Pèlerinage, Livre II, "Italie") - No. 104 and No. 123
Liszt: Reminiscences de Don Juan (Mozart)
D. Scarlatti: Sonata in D minor, K 1/L 366
Chopin: Polonaise in A-flat major ("Heroic"), Op. 53

Pietro De Maria, piano
Recorded live in concert, February 6, 2001, Lincoln Theater, Miami Beach, Florida
Concert presented as part of the Miami International Piano Festival of Discovery

*****

Pietro De Maria, born in Venice in 1967, studied piano with Giorgio Vianello and Gino Gorini. Revealing a precocious talent, he won First Prize at the Alfred Cortot International Piano Competition in Milan at the age of 13. He graduated from the Conservatory of Venice and continued his studies with Maria Tipo at the Conservatory of Geneva, where he obtained the Premier Prix de Virtuosité with the highest honors in 1988.

After receiving the Critics' Prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow (1990), De Maria won First Prize in other prestigious international piano competitions, such as the Dino Ciani - Teatro La Scala in Milan (1990), the Géza Anda in Zurich (1994), and the Mendelssohn Award in Hamburg (1997).

An active concert pianist, he is a regular performer at the most important theaters and festivals throughout Europe, and has played as soloist with the Hamburg and Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestras, the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, the Camerata Academica Salzburg, the Bamberger Symphoniker, the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, with conductors of the stature of Gary Bertini, Myung-Whun Chung, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Alan Gilbert, Eliahu Inbal, Marek Janowski, Peter Maag, Ingo Metzmacher, Yutaka Sado, Carl St. Clair and Sándor Végh.

His recent engagements have included performances at the Bratislava Music Festival, the Musical Olympus in St. Petersburg, the Spring Festival in Budapest, the Settimane Musicali di Ascona, a concert tour of Germany with the Russian Symphony Orchestra of Moscow and an extensive South American tour. His recording of the three Clementi Piano Sonatas op. 40 was released by Naxos in 1999. This CD marks his debut recording for VAI Audio.