When a pianist in his mid-fifties makes his Decca debut release,\nyou can be sure that there is a story attached – and that is\ncertainly the case with the Cuban virtuoso, Jorge Luis Prats

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Prats was a prodigiously talented young pianist in the early\n1970s, studying in Moscow, Paris and Vienna, and winning the\nMarguerite Long Prize in 1977 (and, as a prize winner, even making\na recital LP for Deutsche Grammophon). But the young Cuban had then\nto decide whether to leave his native country and young family for\nan international career abroad - and naturally chose to stay with\nhis family. Apart from occasional performances in neighbouring\ncountries, during the following decades he was rarely heard outside\nCuba and effectively disappeared from the international piano\nscene

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Only recently did he return to the international stage, giving\nkey recitals in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw in 2008 – and was\nimmediately hailed as a long-lost virtuoso in the grand tradition.\nSubsequent recitals and concerto appearances have consolidated his\nreputation, and he is now performing in many of Europe’s major\ncities

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• His métier is the 19th century virtuoso repertoire, with a\nstrong emphasis on the Spanish/Latin American/Cuban School –\nVilla-Lobos, Granados, Albéniz, Lecuona and Cervantes, together\nwith such Romantic giants as Liszt, Chopin, Rachmaninov and\nScriabin

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Decca’s debut CD with Jorge Luis is the live recital he gave in\nthe Sala Mozart, in the new arts centre in Zaragoza (northern\nSpain), on 2 March 2011 – for release in September 2011. The\nrepertoire consists of Granados’s Goyescas, Villa-Lobos’s Bachiana\nBrasileira No.4, Farinas’s Alta Gracia, Cervantes’s Danzas Cubanas\nand Lecuona’s Malagueña – a programme that plays superbly to his\nstrengths and offers a spectacular showcase for the wizardry of\nthis recently-rediscovered giant of the keyboard

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