Classical pianist, music scholar and editor, Fabio Banegas, has appeared in recitals and as soloist in the United States, Europe and in his native Argentina. He studied at the National University of Rosario (UNR) where he obtained two degrees: Piano Performance and the National Professorate of Music where he was a student of Professor Nelly Gabús and Professor Anna María Cué. He continued his education in the United States earning a Master of Music (MM) at California State University Fullerton (CSUF) under Dr Susan Svrček. In fulfilment of his MM he performed and recorded live all the main works for solo piano, chamber music with piano, and works for piano and orchestra by César Franck.

Fabio Banegas is an interpreter of the complete piano works by the Argentinean composer José Antonio Bottiroli, of whom he was a student, and has given world premières of many of the composer’s works. In addition, he also has premiered works by Argentinean composer Nicolás Afredo Alessio, and will record three concertos by Spanish-Argentine composer Eduardo Grau (1919–2006) for Naxos. Banegas’s Czech ancestry prompted him to develop a piano repertoire of known and unknown Czech composers whom he has featured in multimedia recitals.

He is a recipient of many awards, most notably, from Argentina, the Friends of the Arts of Rosario Award and the Mozarteum Santa Fe Music Award; while in the US, he won the Redfield Award of the Orange County Philharmonic Society and the Phi Beta Delta Internationalist Award.

Fabio Banegas has been cast as a pianist in many film and TV productions in Hollywood. He also studied journalism at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

www.fabiobanegas.com

A composer, poet and music teacher, Bottiroli graduated in 1948 from the National University of the Littoral in Argentina receiving the Rotary Club Award for best music student. He studied piano and composition with José de Nito (1887–1945) and harmony and counterpoint with José Francisco Berrini (1897–1963); but it was composer Nicolás Alfredo Alessio (1919–1985) who was his most important musical mentor, collaborator and close friend.

Bottiroli’s music emerged in stark contrast within the Argentinean classical landscape created by his predecessors, as he did not find inspiration in folklore and native dances. He also diverged from the modernist and avant-garde musical aesthetic adopted by many of his contemporaries. Instead, he found in the short musical forms of Romanticism the ideal medium for his expression, which he infused with diverse moods, extreme subjectivism, intimacy and his own real-life experiences.