This is what I have been writing as an introduction to my CD "VENEZUELA"

An artist might have many reasons for recording a CD, and much depends on the circumstances and background of the artist. In this particular case, being able to create what appears to me to follow naturally from my previous CDs of Venezuelan composers Moisés Moleiro, Teresa Carreño and Federico Ruiz, gives me immense joy.

It is difficult to choose from pieces which form a repertoire which is so vast, beautiful, interesting, and close to my heart. For me, there is an intimate connection with the music chosen for this recording. Most of the pieces are by living composers and arrangers, and have been handed down to me by the creators themselves!

When I remember my personal childhood connections with the music, I remember vividly that my mother studied the piano with Moisés Moleiro, that at home there was an LP of Teresa Carreño playing Liszt and Chopin, and another by Evencio Castellanos playing Venezuelan waltzes. The sounds from these recordings gave us all immense pleasure, as they filled the air of the sunny house in Caracas. Later on I met Federico Ruiz, with whom I developed a warm and long lasting connection, who has since written for me some of the most beautiful pieces in the world, including a Piano Concerto.

I have infinite respect and admiration for the humility, ethics and really passionate work that the generations of musicians represented here have displayed; between them, they have of course created the unique, uplifting, approach to what is now styled as ‘Venezuelan music’.  A close friend once told me that we always seem to be in a party mood! It is my belief that  Venezuelans are perhaps the happiest people I have ever met; maybe our happiness is in our genes; perhaps it is due to the lovely weather we enjoy, or it may be because we have not been engulfed by international conflict, like the terrible World Wars; I cannot explain it. I can only say that the music chosen paints both a broad canvas, and illustrates some of the fine detail, of our country. There were many other musical influences which I enjoyed, apart from listening to Venezuelan music.  I grew up listening to the great European Classical musicians and going to concerts given by Claudio Arrau, Martha Argerich, Yo yo ma, Charles Dutoit and many other international figures.

There are many topics to write about in relation to this CD, all to do with Venezuelan tradition- which includes the now-a-days approach-: the style of piano playing, history of the different genres here present: the waltz, the joropo and the merengue; how this music has evolved in the course of time and interestingly how it is still very much present in the today’s generations.

A few months ago Gustavo Dudamel said in a public rehearsal of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra at London’s Southbank Centre that Tchaikovsky was practically a Venezuelan composer because the orchestras in Venezuela constantly play his music. We can also say that at any given time in the same country someone is composing a waltz, a merengue, a joropo or a song be it for fun, for the harmony class or as a gift for a loved one, may be, a “serenata”.

Since I am a pianist I would like to say that there have been some fantastic and important Venezuelan pianists that have both trained to the highest standards in different European and Venezuelan styles. I have to start with Evencio Castellanos because he was probably the first person to put in one disc a collection of the most memorable Venezuelan waltzes from the 19^th century, in such an elegant way that the collectivity grew accustomed to listening to this music played beautifully. Unfortunately I do not think that there are any recordings of other great piano personalities such as Ramón Delgado Palacios, Federico Vollmer, Rogerio Caraballo, Rafael Saumell, Heraclio Fernández, Salvador Llamozas or Joaquin Silva Díaz to name but a few, the technology was simply not there in the mid 19^th and beginning of the 20^th Centuries in Venezuela. EL Cojo Ilustrado, El Albúm Lírico and La Lira Venezolana were newspapers and literary supplements that published the most popular waltzes by the former composers.

Then I would like to say that Guiomar Narváez who started me on the piano, has been a big influence on my playing and preoccupation with the Venezuelan piano music. Tchek- Venezuelan pianist Gerty Hass sculpted her style in Caracas and in Vienna she studied with Richard Hauser but her love for Venezuelan pianism has always accompanied her. She made sure that her students played music by Venezuelan and Latin American composers alongside the rest of the piano repertoire.