The Cuban-born pianist Juana Zayas was eleven
years old when she graduated from the Peyrellade Conservatory in
Havana. She studied at the Paris Conservatoire where she
took first prize in both piano and chamber music and then took a
prize at the Geneva
International Music Competition. In 1977, Miss Zayas made
her New York debut. A New York Times critic
praised
the recital as “an imposing feat,” and later mentioned it as one of
the high points in his review of the musical year. Miss Zayas’s 1983
recording of the Chopin Etudes (reissued by Music & Arts in 1995,
CD 891) was
almost embarrassingly well received. One reviewer went so far as to
declare
that Miss Zayas had
outperformed Maurizio Pollini.
For most pianists, these achievements would have been the
foundation, if not the guarantee, of a successful career. The
remarkable thing about Miss Zayas, however, is that she has assembled
her reputation in her spare time. For over twenty years, marriage
and family took precedence over public performance. Now with her
children grown, Miss Zayas has started to appear in public more
frequently. Her recital at Seton Hall on November 22, 1998 showed
that while Miss Zayas may
have been absent from the stage, she has certainly not been absent
from the piano, for her performances were striking
indeed.
The first half of the program
featured Chopin’s C-minor Nocturne, op. 48, no. 1 and
Sonata in B-flat minor op. 35. Miss Zayas’s interpretation