4HANDS Piano Duo April 21, 2023 Recital

4HANDS Piano Duo - April 21, 2023
Dr. Kristina Henckel
Dr. Amanda Virelles
Bach's Lunch Recital Series
Emmanuel Episcopal Church
Southern Pines, North Carolina
The Program
Barcarolle, from Six Pieces Op. 11
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
Šárka, from Má Vlast
Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884)
Tres Romances Argentinos
Carlos Guastavino (1912-2000)
Las Niñas
Muchacho Jujeño
Baile
Malagueña
Ernesto Lecuona (1895-1963)
Three Preludes
George Gershwin (1898-1937)
Libertango
Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992)
Tico-Tico no Fubá
Zequinha de Abreu (1880-1935)
Czech pianist Kristina Henckel and Cuban pianist Amanda Virelles formed 4HANDS Piano Duo in 2019. Their duo repertoire includes masterpieces from the Classical, Romantic and 20th century periods. Both pianists started performing careers in their home countries and completed doctoral degrees in piano performance and pedagogy in the United States.
Kristina, a native of the Czech Republic, is a graduate of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, under the tutelage of Professor Peter Toperczer. During her study she received several awards in competitions held in the Czech Republic and internationally, and performed with the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra. She is the recipient of the First Prize in the Donna Turner-Smith Piano Competition and First Prize at the Graduate Concerto Competition 2012, at the University of Oklahoma, where her doctoral dissertation “Pianistic Analysis of Bedrich Smetana’s Piano Cycle Dreams” was nominated for the University of Oklahoma Provost’s Dissertation Prize 2016.
Dr. Henckel regularly performs solo and collaborative recitals in Europe and the United States. She also made several recordings for Radio Vltava, Czech Republic and in the Fall of 2015, she became a Ritmüller piano artist. In May 2016, she released a CD with the piano trio Turnía featuring the piano trios of Antonín Dvorák and Bedrich Smetana.
Amanda has performed as a soloist as well as collaborative artist throughout the United States, Europe, South and Central America and the Caribbean. She began her piano studies in Cuba, continued at Moscow State Conservatory Tchaikovsky, and received her MFA degree from the Russian Academy of Music Gnessins in Moscow, Russia, under the guidance of Inna Malinina. Virelles also holds a Master Degree and a Doctoral Degree in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Southern Mississippi, where she received both a full assistantship and a fellowship as the winner of the Doctoral Assistantship Competition. In addition, she is the recipient of national and international piano performance awards.
Kristina and Amanda have released two recordings as a duo, the first "Rhapsody in White and Blue", with music by American composers, and the second "Slava", with music by Slavic composers. A third recording in the series is scheduled to be released in 2023, with music by Hispanic composers. Kristina and Amanda were recently awarded a Grand Prize, selected an Absolute Winner and named Artist of the Year, by the International Youth Music Competition, 2022. Kristina and Amanda are Honorable Mention awardees of The American Prize. In addition to their active performing careers, both Kristina and Amanda hold full time faculty positions, Dr. Henckel at Sandhills Community College, and Dr. Virelles at Fayetteville State University, where she also serves as Interim Chair of the Department of Performing and Fine Arts. Their solo and duo recordings are available on all digital platforms.