Mariel Mayz - Cuban Sketches for Piano (2022)

To know contemporary classical music is to know Leo Brouwer. An acclaimed Cuban composer, conductor, Brouwer has long been celebrated as a modern-day Mozart who has birthed an inimitable body of work. While he has composed for a variety of formats, from quartets to orchestras, Brouwer's canon is most widely associated with the guitar. For starters, he is a terrific classical guitarist whose teachers come from impressive lineage. His teacher's teacher's teacher was Francisco Tárrega, widely considered "the father of classical guitar." As the saying goes, "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

But to truly know Brouwer is to also know that he has also composed exquisite works for solo piano. Enter, Mariel Mayz. She is a remarkable pianist, composer, and teacher who has performed at venerable institutions such as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. She even wrote a chamber opera that premiered during New York Opera Fest. She helped to start Porto Pianofest, an annual piano festival in Porto, Portugal. Like Brouwer, she wears many hats and moves deftly among these roles.

Quite naturally, Mayz first became aware of Brouwer via his guitar compositions. Some of these impactful compositions include "El Decamerón Negro", "Variations on a Theme of Django Reinhardt", "Tríptico", and the "Estudios Sencillos." Mayz heard some of these selections performed by João Luiz, a fellow ZOHO label Artist, and was thoroughly impressed. "I came to truly experience the detailed layers, references, and unequivocal finesse of Brouwer's sound world," she said. In fact, she credits Luiz for suggesting that she learn Brouwer's Diez Bocetos for solo piano. "This music was utterly idiomatic, imaginative, and brilliant," she reflects.

Mariel Mayz's Leo Brouwer: Cuban Sketches for Piano is a thoughtful, elegantly rendered piano solo album that features world premieres of two multi-part pieces: "Diez Bocetos" and ''Nuevos Bocetos para Piano.''