Young Cuban pianist Willanny Darias debuts with her first album "Polychromatic," with music by Cuban and European composers. Album produced by Latin Grammy winner and six times nominee composer and producer Yalil Guerra for RYCY Productions, Inc., a record label with 10 Grammy nominations in the classical music category. © Copyrighted RYCY Productions, Inc. “It is the stretched soul that makes music. And souls are stretched by the pull of opposites - opposite points, tastes, yearnings, loyalties. Where there is no polarity, where energies flow smoothly in one direction, there will be much doing but no music, much noise but no music. The music is created by the meeting of silence and sound, the music is created by the polar opposites.” - Osho Polychromatic is a meeting of cultures and traditions experienced through piano music, in the hands of classically-trained Cuban pianist Willanny Darias. This multi-colored production contains works by Robert Schumann and Alban Berg, as well as four living Cuban composers: Aurelio de la Vega, José María Vitier, Aldo López-Gavilán and Yalil Guerra. The Symphonic Études by Schumann, an 18-part work, turn the piano into an orchestra where different moods, timbres, and characters are blended and superimposed. The pianistic difficulties are not for purely technical virtuosity but instead are meant as a clarification of the form and an expression of the polyphonic complexity. This version of the work, which also includes the 5 posthumously-published variations, is able to portray the conversation between the imaginary characters which represent the two opposite, contrasting sides of Schumann’s personality - the introspective, melancholy sections in the voice of Eusebius, and the fiery, wild ones as told by Florestan. Berg’s Piano Sonata firmly stands on the imagined fence between Romanticism and Modernism, between tonality and atonality, between tradition and innovation. While comprised of a single movement in sonata form, it is also an expression of Schoenberg’s idea of developing variation, since most of the musical material in the work can be traced back to the first two measures. The heavy use of chromaticism and whole-tone scales give the Sonata its unstable and almost-atonal feeling - at times yearning, at other times despairing, its final return to the key of B minor does not feel like an arrival, but rather a resignation. Willanny Darias (born 1993 in Havana, Cuba) completed her Bachelor and Master of Music at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, where she studied with Solomon Mikowsky on a full scholarship. She received her musical education in Cuba from the age of 5 until 17 and had her symphonic debut at age 12. Recent appearances include solo recitals and chamber music performances in Havana, New York, Los Angeles, Germany, Sweden and Greece. Her awards include: five Grand and First prizes in Cuba; First Prize 2005 Maracaibo International Piano Competition (Venezuela); First Prize 2009 Bradshaw and Buono International Piano Competition (New York); First Prize 2010 Unión de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba (UNEAC) Piano Competition; and Fourth Prize 2014 Panama International Piano Competition. Some of her video and audio performances can be found on her website, willannydarias.com. Album Credits: Producer: Yalil Guerra Recording Engineer: Yalil Guerra, RYCY Productions, Inc. Recorded at Hollywood Piano, Burbank, California Piano: 9,4" Mason & Hamlin CC-94 Microphones: Mojave Audio MA-300 and MA-200 Mixing and Mastering Engineer: Oscar Autie, El Cerrito Studio, El Cerrito, California © Copyright Protected RYCY Productions, Inc.