Sonus Founding Members Biographies

Gabriella Cavallero. Gabriella brings over 30 years of experience as a professional actor, director, producer, and coach to all her endeavors.  As a professional actor at the highly acclaimed Denver Center Theatre Company and on many of Colorado’s top stages, she has played a wide range of roles in dozens of productions. She co-founded and was Artistic Director of Modern Muse Theatre Company. Among the many shows she produced, directed and acted in with the company, her most successful accomplishment has been “Cuéntame un Cuentito, Tell Me a Little Story,” a bilingual touring show that includes music and imaginative telling of stories from different Latin-American traditions. The lauded outreach program, meant to inspire children to embrace their unique voices and cultures, has reached thousands of elementary school students in Colorado. Gabriella has narrated and sung on many stages, organizing and presenting Argentine-themed programs, including Guastavino’s works, and numerous tango fundraisers featuring renown Bandoneón Masters David Alsina and Raúl Jaurena. She is featured narrator and chanteuse in the recording Piazzolla, Here & Now for the Centaur Record Label. Her teaching and coaching credits include adjunct professor of voice, speech, acting, and movement and at the University of Denver and the University of Colorado; teaching artist at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts; dialect and movement coach for the Arvada Center for Arts and Humanities; and Lead Voice and Communication Coach for ARTiculate Real&Clear. As a voice-over artist, she has narrated several Emmy-nominated documentaries for PBS, nearly 1000 audio books for the Library of Congress’ National Library Service, and voiced countless commercials and industrials in both her native Spanish and English. Gabriella holds an MFA in Acting from the National Theatre Conservatory and a BA in Theatre from Vassar College. Contact gcvoce@yahoo.com

Alejandro Cremaschi.  Born in Argentina, pianist Alejandro Cremaschi, teaches piano and piano pedagogy at the University of Colorado in Boulder.  Dr. Cremaschi received MM and DMA degrees from the University of Minnesota, and undergraduate degrees from the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), and the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Argentina. He studied in the USA with Dr. Lydia Artymiw in St. Paul, MN, and Dr. Nancy Roldán at UMBC; and in Argentina with pianist Dora De Marinis.  In 2001, he was a prize winner at the International Beethoven Sonata Piano Competition in Memphis, Tennessee.  In 2017 he was awarded the Outstanding Alumni Award at the University of Maryland Baltimore County’s College of Arts and Humanities.  Alejandro first became captivated by Carlos Guastavino’s musical universe in 1991, when he moved to Baltimore to study piano with Nancy Roldán. Later, he collaborated with Roldán in the premier Maryland performance of Romance de Ausencia, a work for choir and two pianos based on a poem by the Argentine poet Ricardo Rojas. Alejandro is an active performer and clinician.  He has recorded solo and chamber music works by Luis Gianneo, Carlos Guastavino, Luis Jorge González, and others for the labels IRCO, Ostinato, Marco Polo, and Meridian Records. His pedagogical edition and recording of Ginastera’s “Doce Preludios Americanos” for piano was published by Carl Fischer in 2016, replacing the original 1946 original edition of this work. Alejandro has been a presenter at numerous national and international conferences and has published articles in the Research Studies in Music Education journal, Journal of Music, Technology and Education, Clavier Companion, Piano Magazine and the MTNA e-journal among others.

José Miguel Cueto, violinist, has over 40 years’ experience leading orchestras in the United States and abroad, including the Americas; Western, Central, and Eastern Europe; and Asia. His multitalented skills as concertmaster, soloist, and chamber musician make him a much sought-after artist. Deeply committed to the process of education, Mr. Cueto shares his expertise as violin teacher, chamber ensemble/orchestra coach, and lecturer in studio and master class settings.  Dedicated to the performance of “rarely heard” music, he has premiered various works with pianist Nancy Roldán by contemporary American and Argentine composers, including Andrew Gerle, Thomas Benjamin, Alberto Ginastera, Juan José Castro, Juan Orrego Salas, Constantino Gaito, Eduardo Grau, and Carlos Guastavino. He premiered and recorded his own transcription for violin and String Orchestra of Guastavino’s La rosa y el sauce for the Marquis Label with the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra in Russia. José met with Carlos Guastavino on several occasions between the years 1987 and 1995, enjoying the support and admiration of the composer. He has considerable experience performing Argentine Tango, having performed on numerous occasions with Bandoneón Masters David Alsina from Argentina; and Raúl Jaurena from Uruguay who composed Para vos y para mí – “For you and me” –for violin and bandoneon during one of the fundraisers for the Liszt-Garrison event in Maryland. For additional details please visit https://josemiguelcueto.com.

Argentine pianist Pablo Lavandera arrived in the USA in1998 to pursue graduate studies under a Fulbright Scholarship. Early in his career, he was awarded the Performer Award granted by the Argentine Society of Composers and Authors (SADAIC) for his passionate commitment to the performance of past and present Argentine Composers.  In 2009, Pablo Lavandera won the Collaborative Artists First Prize on the Liszt-Garrison Festival and International Piano Competition in Baltimore, Maryland. He and violinist partner Joanna Kaczorowska were also awarded Best Interpretation awards for their interpretation of La lugubre gondola by Franz Liszt, and for Sueños de Chambi by American composer Gabriela Lena Frank, a composition they premiered in New York and in Germany. In 2020 he performed solo and Art Songs by Carlos Guastavino on the first two concerts at the Argentine Consulate in New York. An enthusiastic proponent of contemporary music, Lavandera’s collaborations with living composers have resulted in several premieres in the USA and abroad.  In Argentina, he has performed and recorded music by contemporary composers included in the “Argentine Music Anthology” published by the Argentine National Endowment for the Arts. Other recordings include Irma Urteaga’s Complete Works, and the piano concerto by Rodolfo Arizaga. Dr. Pablo Lavandera is Artist in Residence at Stony Brook University, where he teaches piano, chamber music, and accompanying for undergraduate students. He has received a MM from the New England Conservatory of Music, a Performers’ degree from Indiana University, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from NYSU at Stony Brook. His main teachers have been Aldo Antognazzi and Ema Centurio in Argentina, and Gilbert Kalish and Menahem Pressler in the USA.

Salvatore Sclafani was born in Palermo, Italy. His main purpose as a pianist is to find links between music and other arts, especially literature. He holds an MA in Music Performance (Piano) and an MA in Music Pedagogy from the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles (Belgium), where he studied with Belgian pianist Eliane Reyes. Among his mentors is also Italian pianistRoberto Plano. He has been awarded several prizes in international competitions, including the International Caraglio Competition and the Premio Crescendo in Italy, the Concours de la Fondation Andrée Charlier in Belgium, and the Concours Festival Répertoire Pianistique Moderne in France. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Arts and Arts Sciences – “Art et Sciences de l’Art” – at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. His research focuses on the influence of Argentinian folk music on selected piano works by Argentinian composers Carlos Guastavino (1912-2000) and Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983). His investigation aims to demonstrate how knowledge of the practices and the formal elements of folk Argentinian songs and dances can directly inform concrete aspects of the interpretation of these works, by bringing together a theoretical-analytical perspective and a focus on technical aspects of piano performance.He is grateful for Nancy Roldán’s kind support of his research efforts on Carlos Guastavino’s piano music and excited to be part of Sonus to contribute to the dissemination of the composer’s art in Europe, especially via lecture-recitals. Salvatore plans on traveling to the Americas in order to begin his field research.Healsocontinues his career as a pedagogue, currently teaching piano performance at Conservatoire de Maubeuge (France), which gives him the opportunity to appreciate Guastavino’s piano works from a pedagogical point of view as well.

Lilia Salsano. Nominated by the Instituto Nacional de Música (INAMU) of Argentina, Lilia was awarded a National Grant to record the Complete Piano Works by Carlos Guastavino, becoming the first Argentine pianist to record the composer’s complete opus for piano solo. The recording was made at the Symphonic Hall La Ballena Azul at the Kirchner Cultural Center and released in 2019. During the previous year she presented works by Guastavino in the Argentine Embassies in Paris and Rome, receiving invitations by the Associazione Musicale Dioniso at the “Festival Internazionale de Piano” in Savona, Italy; and by ILAMS – The Iberian and Latin American Music Society, to perform at the SCHOTT Music Room in London. Additional distinctions include scholarships by the Ministry of Culture of the province of Santa Fe, the University of El Litoral, and the Academy of Arts to sponsor the recording of the complete piano works by Argentine Composer Virtú Maragno, for the UNL record label. Her performances in the USA, Europe, and South America have been received with rave reviews. During her European Tour 2015, underwritten by the Ministry of Culture, she performed at Casa de la Cultura in Rome, premiering Malambo al Final by Argentine composer Cristian Axt. She has performed extensively as soloist with orchestras and is also the pianist of the Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra. A graduate of the University of Litoral, she teaches music at the “Antonio Fuentes del Arco Lyceum” of Santa Fe. Her pedagogic activities include annual presentations at the World Piano Conference in Serbia.