Réne Lecuona in Recital: Music with a Story

Pianist Réne Lecuona presents a solo piano recital featuring works by Brahms, Beethoven, Dora Pejacevic, and Alexander Scriabin.
About this Event

Pianist Réne Lecuona has performed in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Scotland and throughout the United States. She earned undergraduate and master's degrees at Indiana University. She was awarded a Performer’s Certificate and a doctorate from Eastman, where she also won the Concerto Competition. Her teachers have included Rebecca Penneys, Menahem Pressler, Edward Auer, Shigeo Neriki, Laurie Conrad, and György Sebök.

Lecuona’s performances have received high praise:

• “Lecuona seems to lavish well-considered planning to every note sheplays. Her control of the keyboard is amazing.” (Karl F. Miller, Fanfare Magazine, Nov/Dec 2019)
• “Lecuona plays it [the Boëllmann Sonata for Cello and Piano] with scintillating brilliance.” (Jerry Dubins, Fanfare 2015)

Lecuona has championed the music of underrepresented composers such as Germaine Tailleferre, Julia Perry, Erin Gee, Florence Price, Karina Glasinovic, and George Walker in her performing and teaching. For many years, she has performed with cellist Hannah Holman, and their most recent recording features Romantic sonatas for cello and piano by Dora Pejacevic, Henriette Bosmans, and Ethel Smyth.

Lecuona has established strong professional relationships in South America, where she has taught and performed more than fifty times. In June 2024, Réne Lecuona, a professor of piano at the University of Iowa, worked with colleagues at Universidad de Antioquia to create the summer piano festival, Making Music Together. As part of this festival, piano students from both universities presented recitals and lectures in Medellin and Jericó, Colombia. Lecuona was the recipient of a 2024 Global Research Partnership Award from International Programs at the University of Iowa for the creation of the festival.

Lecuona joined the faculty of the InterHarmony Music Festival in 2020 (virtually) and in Italy during for the summers of 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2026. Lecuona’s former students hold faculty positions in Korea, Brazil, Colombia and in the United States. Lecuona’s playing is featured on more than fifteen CD recordings and on social media. Her upcoming performances will take her to Indiana, Pennsylvania, Colombia, and Chile