Cristina Bayon Alvarez/Jesus Pineda - Music for Soprano & Guitar, by 19th Century Female Composers

The nineteenth-century salon was an essential medium for the presentation of new artistic and literary trends. There was also a clear female supremacy inherited from the salons of the 18th century, in which noblewomen and female members of the gentry set the tone and dominated the cultural society. This was the place to listen to chamber music, salonni�re operas or transcriptions of piano songs on other instruments such as the guitar or harp. In order to recreate the musical atmosphere of a nineteenth-century salon, this recording will focus on female composers only. Presented are works the famous opera diva Pauline Viardot (1821-1919), the equally famous, even legendary Maria Malibr�n (1808-1836, the younger sister of Pauline Viardot), Isabella Colbr�n (1785-1845), Pauline Duchambge (1778-1858), Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn (1805-1847) and Clara Wieck-Schumann (1819-1896). Cristina Bay�n studied at the Advanced Music Conservatory of her native city Seville. She completed her training at the Staatliche Hochschule f�r Musik Trossingen, Germany, where she took degrees in historical singing under Mar�a Cristina Kiehr. She worked with conductors such as Christoph Coin, Diego Fasolis, Monica Huggett and with groups like Vozes de Al Ayre Espa�ol. Guitarist Jes�s Pineda took master classes with Alberto Ponce, Leo Brouwer, Roland Dyens or David Russell. He has won nine prizes in national and international competitions, among which the Andr�s Segovia Competition. He is Doctor Cum Laude from the University of Seville with a Thesis on the guitar work of the composer Manuel Castillo.