Juana Zayas
Cuban American Juana Zayas is among the world’s most admirable concert pianists. Wherever she has performed critics have invariably remarked on the depth of Ms. Zayas’s artistry. When, in 1977, she performed both sets of the Chopin Etudes at her Alice Tully Hall debut, Ms. Zayas so charmed the legendary New York Times critic Harold Schonberg that he would later declare, “Ms. Zayas turned out to be a Chopinist to the manner born.” Her 1983 release of these notoriously challenging pieces has entered the canon of twentieth century recordings, driving — in Schonberg’s words — “Chopinophiles mad with ecstasy.” In 2001 the Cuban Cultural Center of New York presented Ms. Zayas with the Ignacio Cervantes Medal, its prestigious lifetime achievement award for excellence in classical music. In 2010, her more recent release of the Chopin Etudes earned her the coveted Diapason d’Or Award from the prestigious French Diapason music journal, hailing her as “Une Grande Pianiste.”
Ms. Zayas has dazzled audiences with the sparkling brilliance of Scarlatti’s sonatas, “the subtle painting of figures and moods” of Schumann’s Carnaval, and the unique “breadth and nobility of expression” in Chopin’s Sonata in B minor. Juana Zayas has often performed at the Sala Verdi of Milan’s Conservatory of Music at the invitation of the prestigious Serate Musicali. She has issued one of these celebrated recitals in her Soirée Italienne recording — a 2-CD set featuring numerous Italian-inspired works by Bach, Scarlatti, Clementi, Chopin, and Liszt. Her 1983 recording of the Chopin Études has been widely lauded as the greatest of the 20th century.
