www.noontimeconcerts.org
José López is Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Keyboard Studies Program at Florida International University in Miami, Florida, President of the South Florida Chapter of the American Liszt Society, and Honorary Secretary of the United Kingdom’s Alkan Society. He has performed throughout the United States, Italy, and Central and South America with orchestras, solo recitals, and chamber groups in concert halls, summer festivals such as the Music Festival of the Hamptons in New York and the Killington Music Festival in Vermont. Active throughout South Florida, he has been a featured performer in the Florida International University’s Music Festival; ISCM New Music Miami Festival, the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival, Coral Gables’ Mainly Mozart Series, University of Miami’s Miami Festival, and as founder and co-director of the Deering Estate at Cutler’s “Chamber Music Series.”
Activities have included performances through villages around Lake Como, Italy for the 2008 International Convention on 12-tone music and a paper on piano works by Riccardo Malipiero as part of the proceedings at the Villa Vigoni German/Italian Center. Dr. López’s world premiere recording of the complete solo piano music by Riccardo Malipiero was released in the summer of 2012 and has received favorable reviews by critic Tim Smith in The Baltimore Sun, Fanfare magazine and MusicWeb International. His release of the complete Mozart transcriptions by French Romantic composer Charles Valentin Alkan on the Toccata Classics label (2015) also received reviews in the London Times, Fanfare and Alkan Society. His upcoming project for Toccata Classics is a continuation of the “lost Cuban composers” series; begun in 2015 with the release of works by José Comellas, this time devoted to the operatic transcriptions of Nicolás Ruíz Espadero.
A versatile pianist and enthusiastic performer of chamber music, Dr. López was a founding member of the Dalbergi Trio, has collaborated as a member of FIU’s resident new music ensemble, the Nodus Ensemble, and was the orchestral pianist with the Florida Philharmonic for 13 years. He is currently active performing and recording new and old obscure works for piano and strings along with solo piano works. His interest in contemporary music features frequent world premieres and collaborations with composers along with his pursuit of resurrecting rarely heard works by Romantic and Classical composers.
Born in Cuba into an immigrant family of Spanish, Basque and Sephardic descent, José emigrated to the United States at a young age. López received his MM and DMA degrees from the University of Miami School of Music, where he studied with Dr. Rosalina Sackstein, a former pupil of Claudio Arrau and Rafael de Silva. He has recorded for SNE, Albany, Innova and Toccata Classics record labels.