Claudette Sorel plays selected works for solo in a commemorative edition of two albums the pianist piano.
Sorel (1932-1999) a French-American pianist and a committed advocate of equal rights for women in the arts, left France with her family in 1940 and migrated to the United States, where she studied at the Juilliard School of Music and at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute.
While researching the piano music of composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, Sorel discovered two nocturnes by the composer that had been neither published nor performed before. She premiered these in 1973 at a recital celebrating the composer’s centenary, unfortunately her last public appearance, as soon thereafter she was injured in a fall and never performed again.
This recording includes bravura pieces by Raff and Moszkowski, Fredric Chopin’s Sonata No. 3, and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Nocturne in A Minor Op10, in addition to the three Nocturnes she unearthed.
Throughout this invaluable recording, available from Amazon Music, Sorel displays tremendous technical prowess, coupled to elegant musicality and acute sensitivity.
Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”
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