A new concerto for piano and orchestra by Florencia Di Concilio, a young composer from Uruguay, will receive its world premiere on Monday November 14, 2011 at the Solis Theatre in Montevideo, Uruguay. The concerto was commissioned by the Orquesta Filarmonica de Montevideo and will be performed by the orchestra with Swiss conductor Thomas Herzog and pianist Enrique Graf as soloist. The composer describes her concerto as harmonically “jazzy” with South American rhythmic elements and a mixture of influences from Sergei Rachmaninoff to Bill Evans.
Although Uruguay is known for its substantial cultural output there have been only a handful of concertos written for piano and orchestra by Uruguayan composers. Di Concilio, has scored more than twenty feature and documentary films, as well as composing music for chamber ensembles and orchestras. Her music has been commercially released by Milan/Universal and received critical acclaim from The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Variety. One of the highlights of the many films Di Concilio has scored is the prize winning “Stranded: I’ve Come From a Plane in the Mountains” which chronicled the survival story of the 1972 Uruguayan rugby team stranded in the Andes Mountains for seventy seven days. Di Concilio, who lives in Paris, was educated at the French School in Montevideo, the College of Charleston and the New England Conservatory in Boston.
Pianist Enrique Graf has performed the world over as soloist with orchestras, in chamber music and solo recitals. His recordings include solo works by Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Liszt and Moussorgsky and concertos by Beethoven, Grieg, Gershwin, Poulenc and Hart. Graf is also an outstanding teacher and holds the positions of University Artist in Residence at the College of Charleston and Artist Lecturer at Carnegie Mellon University. He is Founder and Artistic Director of the International Piano Series in Charleston, SC and Piccolo Spoleto Festival’s Young Artist Series and is also Co-founder/Director of Music Fest Perugia in Italy.
