I - Allegro
Sonata KV.283
Josefina Urraca, piano
Sarah K. Williams, video art
W.A.Mozart was about 17 years old when he traveled to Munich with his father for the premiere of his opera “La finta giardiniera”. He took 5 keyboard sonatas with him, and wrote a 6th one while being there, the so-called ‘Munich sonatas’, KV 279-284. This sonata is part of the earliest group of sonatas that Mozart published in the mid-1770s.
Josefina Urraca (full name: Maria Josefina Urraca Perez de Diego), is a New York City-based pianist.
Josefina was born in Spain in a musical environment, her mother is a piano teacher, her brother a cellist, and all her family, especially her grandfather, classical music lovers. Her first formal teacher and great guidance was Eva Gigosos at the Palencia Conservatory.
From she was seven, Josefina attended Masterclasses with prestigious pianists and pedagogues such as: Maria Joao Pires, Ferenc Rados, Rita Wagner, Eldar Nebolsin, Julian Martin, Joaquín Achúcarro, Pavel Gililov, Jose Ramón Méndez, Matti Raekallio, Frank Wibaut, Jeffrey Swann, Alexander Kandelaki, Nino Kereselidze, Miguel Ángel Ortega, Alberto Rosado, Antonio Baciero and Manuel Carra.
Josefina received her undergraduate degree at the Salamanca Conservatory. In 2007, she was selected to continue her studies at the Aula de Música de Alcalá de Henares. During these years Ms. Urraca worked with her more influential teachers: Patrín García Barredo, Josep Colom, Claudio Martínez-Mehner, and Kennedy Moretti.
In 2008 Josefina expanded her education at the École Normale de Musique de Paris with Guigla Katsarava.
During the following three years she attended the well-renowned music school Reina Sofía (Madrid), where she studied with the great Dmitri Bashkirov, Claudio Martínez-Mehner, Márta Gulyás, Luis Fernando Pérez, and Denis Lossev.
In 2014, Josefina Urraca received with the highest academic qualifications her Master's Degree from Manhattan School of Music under the supervision of Dr. Silverman.
Passionated for chamber music, Josefina Urraca is since 2013, a founder-member and managing director of CreArtBox, a classical and contemporary music ensemble. CreArtBox members are musicians from prestigious orchestras such as Metropolitan Orchestra, American Ballet Theater, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Louisiana Philharmonic, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, New World Symphony Orchestra, Oviedo Filarmonia, BBC Orchestra, and Euskadi Filarmonia.
Josefina Urraca has received prices from Savvy Musicians in Action, INJUVE Chamber Music Competition, Montehermoso Contemporary Creation Award, Veguellina de Orbigo, Ciudad de Carlet, Rotary Club de Valladolid, Ciudad de Linares: Marisa Montiel, and have received grants and support from the Promete Foundation, Amphion Foundation, Alice M. Ditson Foundation, Queens Council on the Arts, the Spanish Embassy in the USA, Manhattan School of Music, Caja Madrid Foundation, Luis Galvé Foundation, and Albéniz Foundation.
Josefina has been a frequent performer at venues in Spain, Italy, Austria, France, Japan, England, Germany, and the US, as a soloist and as a chamber music player, including Carnegie Hall, Ryogoku Monten Hall in Tokyo, Auditorio Sony in Madrid, and Alfred Cortot Auditorio in París.
Sarah K. Williams, video artist: is a multi-disciplinary artist working between sculpture and performance, exploring the musicality of instruction and the theatricality of the mundane. Recent fellowships and residencies include the NARS Satellite Program, Target Margin Theater Institute, Studios at MASS MoCA, AIM at the Bronx Museum, Vermont Studio Center, and the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program. Raised in Virginia and based in Brooklyn, she received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and studied experimental music at the Universität der Künste in Berlin on a Fulbright Fellowship. She is also the founder/director of Sprechgesang Institute, a project-based collaborative for artists working in an in-between language of two or more disciplines.