Leo De María, piano

Goyescas, a piano suite by Spanish composer Enrique Granados inspired by the paintings of Francisco Goya, is considered Granados’s finest composition and one of the crown jewels of the Spanish piano repertoire. Franz Liszt’s Après une lecture du Dante: Fantasia quasi Sonata opens the door to an entirely different world. While it retains traces of sonata form, its expressive power rests above all on constant transformations of the thematic material, creating dramatic contrasts and a sonority of almost symphonic dimensions. The Piano Sonata No. 8 in B major is the last and longest of Sergei Prokofiev’s three “war sonatas”. The work reveals the composer’s deep understanding of the piano. As a virtuoso pianist, he never ceased exploring the expressive possibilities offered by the instrument.

The works are interpreted by the Spanish pianist Leo de María, a former student of Leonel Morales in Madrid and Pavel Gililov in Salzburg (both are members of the jury of the Ljubljana Festival International Piano Competition 2026), who has gone on to develop a stylistically diverse profile as a pianist. Today he combines concert performances with teaching roles in Madrid and Salzburg and regular masterclasses in the United States. He appears regularly in concert halls throughout Europe and in the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa and China. As a soloist, he has collaborated with numerous ensembles, including orchestras from Spain, Slovakia, Portugal and South Africa, and worked with many European conductors of the younger generation. He has also served as a jury member at piano competitions in Spain, Serbia and Portugal.