This Women's History Month CapRadio highlights a different woman in music each weekday. Today's classical spotlight is on Teresa Carreño.
- Born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1853, Teresa Carreño was a child prodigy pianist, singer, composer, and conductor who became an internationally renowned pianist known as the "Valkyrie of the Piano."
- Carreño emigrated with her family to New York in 1862, and between 1863-1865 performed across Cuba and the United States including in 1863 for Abraham Lincoln at the White House (and there again in 1916 for Woodrow Wilson).
- In 1866 her family brought her to Paris where she toured for the next six years across Europe and met and studied with such famous names as Gioachino Rossini, Charles Gounod and Franz Liszt.
- She returned to the US in 1872 and in years thereafter performed as a singer and pianist around the world, married and had children and taught, including American pianist and composer Edward MacDowell.
- Carreño composed approximately 75 works for solo piano, voice and piano, choir and orchestra, and instrumental ensemble. The many composers who dedicated their compositions to Carreño include Amy Beach (Piano Concerto in C-sharp minor) and Edward MacDowell (Piano Concerto No. 2).
- Teresa Carreño died in New York in 1917 at the age of 63. Listen for her music throughout the day on CapRadio.
Also, initially declared unplayable, Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 is now recognized as a piano concerto masterwork, and it’s today’s Midday Masterpiece with soloist Martha Argerich.
