Mario Tarenghi: Works for 2 Pianos

Artur Pizarro & Rinaldo Zhok Born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1968, Artur Pizarro gave his first public performance at the age of three and made his television début on Portuguese television at the age of four. He was introduced to the instrument by his maternal grandmother, pianist Berta da Nóbrega, and her piano-duo partner, Campos Coelho who was a student of Vianna da Motta, Ricardo Viñes and Isidor Philipp. From 1974 to 1990 Artur studied with Sequeira Costa who had also been a student of Vianna da Motta and of Mark Hamburg, Edwin Fischer, Marguerite Long and Jacques Février. This distinguished lineage immersed Artur in the tradition of the ‘Golden Age’ of pianism and gave him a broad education in both the German and French piano schools and repertoire. During a brief interruption of his studies in the USA, Artur also studied with Jorge Moyano in Lisbon, and in Paris worked with Aldo Ciccolini, Géry Moutier and Bruno Rigutto. Artur won first prizes in the 1987 Vianna da Motta Competition, the 1988 Greater Palm Beach Symphony Invitational Piano Competition and won first prize at the 1990 Leeds International Pianoforte Competition, which marked the beginning of an international concert career. Artur Pizarro performs internationally in recital, chamber music and with the world’s leading orchestras and conductors including Sir Simon Rattle, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the late Sir Charles Mackerras. Artur is an active chamber musician and has performed at chamber music festivals throughout the world. Artur Pizarro has recorded extensively for Collins Classics, Hyperion Records, Linn Records, Brilliant Classics, Klara, Naxos, Danacord, Odradek Records, Capriccio and Phoenix Edition. His most recent releases include, for the Odradek label, a solo disc of works by Schumann, the complete piano duet works of Beethoven with Rinaldo Zhok, the Poulenc concerto for piano with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Thomas Rosner and the five Beethoven piano concerti with the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra conducted by Julia Jones. Artur Pizarro has received various awards from his native Portugal for services to classical music and culture including the Portuguese Press Award, the Portuguese Society of Authors award, the Medal of Culture of the City of Funchal and the Medal of Cultural Merit from the Portuguese Government. Presently, Artur Pizarro teaches privately at his studio in Oeiras, Portugal. He frequently gives masterclasses Born in Trieste (Italy), Rinaldo Zhok received from his mother his first piano lessons at the age of seven. Until he was 18 he studied in the Conservatorio Giuseppe Tartini in Trieste with Clara Lenuzza, to whom he owes much of his education. He trained as a soloist with Sergio Perticaroli and Stefano Fiuzzi at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Roma and at the Folkwang Universität in Essen (Germany) with Boris Bloch. As a pianist and with different chamber ensembles, he studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich with the famous duo Yaara Tal & Andreas Groethuysen and at the Scuola Superiore Internazionale di Musica da Camera del Trio di Trieste with Dario De Rosa, Renato Zanettovich and Enrico Bronzi. He completed studies in harpsichord and pedagogy at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Navarra. He also had important contact with the maestros Lazar Berman, Aldo Ciccolini, Pier Narciso Masi, Mauro Minguzzi and Riccardo Zadra. He has undertaken many concerts in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria, France, Germany, Poland, Hungary and Norway as soloist, as well as in chamber formations and with orchestra, with excellent reception on the part of both audiences and critics. He was awarded a prize at the “Halina Czerny-Stefańska in memoriam” International Piano Competition (Poznan, 2008) and at the International Piano Competition “Performance Without Limits” (Łódź, 2013). From 2014 he has partnered the Portuguese pianist Artur Pizarro forming a duo; they have recorded Dvořák’s From the Bohemian Forest & Dumky as well as Boundless, Beethoven’s entire piano works for four hands. His broad knowledge of vocal repertoire and his adaptability in piano accompaniment have made him also a model in the training of interpretation for voice, while he has also been working on the recovery and publication of the spanish voice repertoire of the 19th century.