MISTRAL
DUO
The Duo Mistral was born in 1981 when both artists joined together to explore the beautiful repertoire of four-hand piano and also two pianos, being outstanding students of the piano music performance career at the Arts Faculty of the University of Chile. They were very well received by the public and specialized critics. Paulina graduated with Maximum Distinction and continued her studies of ¨Master of Music¨ at ¨Eastman School of Music¨ and ¨Doctor of Music¨, at the prestigious Indiana University, United States, where she received the legacy of the Hungarian school that expands from Franz Liszt to Béla Bartók, through the teachings of György Sebők in piano and cellist Janos Starker, with whom she even toured with concerts and masterclasses in the United States and Europe.
After more than 20 years she returned to Chile and with the desire to create a more advanced piano school, she designed and achieved the approval in 2016 at the University of Chile of the first Master’s Degree in Musical Performance in Latin America. In addition to continuing her extensive work as a national and international soloist, she premiered Debussy’s 12 Studies at the GAM in Santiago, for which she received the Critics’ Award 2016 and toured and recorded for the record label ¨Delos¨ obtaining very good sales and excellent reception from specialized critics. In March of this year she was invited to compete for a position as a piano teacher at the ¨Jacobs School of Music¨ of Indiana University, one of the best schools in the world, and she reached the final along with three other contestants. Recently, she has been invited by the same university as ¨Visiting Professor¨ to do sabbatical replacements in the years 2019 and 2020 of two months each.
Karina Glasinovic, meanwhile, developed an intense musical life, both as a soloist and in chamber music. She has also premiered and recorded more than 150 contemporary works by national and international authors. She received the José Miguel Ruíz and Cristóbal Morales awards in Spain, and in Chile the Ravel, Academia de Bellas Artes and Altazor awards. She also received an honorable mention for her Three Preludes for Piano, at ¨Ecole Normale de Musique¨ in Paris, France. Between 1992 and 1994 she resided in Europe and then in the United States where she took advanced courses at ‘The Juilliard School of Music¨ and ¨Mannes School of Music¨, in New York, where she lived for more than 15 years, and where she began to compose. Her compositions have been premiered in the United States, Chile, Colombia, China, South Korea, Brazil and the United Kingdom with great success. She has performed concerts in important halls such as Sala Martinú in Prague, Radio Budapest in Budapest, Salle Cortot in Paris, Cite des Arts in Montreal, Salón Dorado Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Teatro del Lago and Teatro Municipal in Santiago de Chile, Kennedy-center in Washington D.C., Merkin Hall and Carnegie Hall in New York City. In 2017 she obtained her Master’s Degree in Music Performance at the University of Chile with unanimous distinction and in 2018, Karina has been awarded the Iowa Performance Fellowship in Piano for four years at the University of Iowa, to pursue doctoral studies in the United States. In the same year, she received the Margot Loyola Award for her work Five Violets for Piano dedicated to Violeta Parra.
In 2013 both of them join again as a duo and under the name of the great poetess Gabriela Mistral, they started an important creative work developing concerts with the most demanding repertoire for four hands and two pianos, and master classes in national and international tours. They have also created a concert season that promotes the concept of educational and intimate concert, seeking to recreate the atmosphere of the pleasant musical gatherings of the 18th century. They have presented themselves enchanting and impacting the public at the GAM, at the Teatro Oriente and at the Teatro del Lago in Frutillar in Chile, where they closed the international season in 2016 with great success. During February of 2018 they toured the United States and Brazil with great success, premiering Chilean works and traditional repertoire. In September 2018 the Duo Mistral was invited by the Tianjin Conservatory in Tianjin, China to give master classes and a recital with works of traditional repertoire and Karina Glasinovic. They were invited by the U.S. Embassy to tour the North and South of Chile, in isolated places and social risk in August 2018, to honor the 100th anniversary of the birth of Leonard Bernstein by offering a talk-concert and workshops. The Duo Mistral’s most recent concert was held in February 2020 in the Dumke Hall of the School of Music at the University of Utah in Salt Lake, USA, where they performed works by W. A. Mozart.
THE GREAT CHILEAN POET GABRIELA MISTRAL: A BRILLIANT, CREATIVE, BRAVE, PASSIONATE, GENEROUS AND FIGHTING WOMAN, TO WHOM THE MISTRAL DUO PAYS HOMAGE IN EVERY CORNER OF THE WORLD IN EVERY CONCERT, MASTER CLASS, RECORDING AND TALK.
Here is her poem Decalogue of the Artist, whose profound message delights and inspires us:
I. You shall love beauty, which is the shadow of God over the Universe.
II. There is no atheistic art. Even if you do not love the Creator, you will affirm it by creating in His likeness.
III. You will not give beauty as a bait for senses, but as natural food for the soul.
IV. It shall not be a pretext for lust or vanity, but a divine exercise.
V. You shall not look for it in fairs or take your work to them, because Beauty is virgin, and it is not She who is in fairs.
VI. It will rise from your heart to your song and will have purified you first.
VII. Your beauty will also be called mercy, and will comfort the hearts of men.
VIII. Thou shalt give thy work as a son giveth himself, taking blood out of thy heart.
IX. Beauty will not be to you numbing opium, but generous wine that will set you on fire for action, for if you cease to be a man or a woman, you will cease to be an artist.
X. You shall come out of every creation with shame, because it was inferior to your dream, and inferior to that wonderful dream of God, which is Nature.
Concert announcement of the Duo Mistral at the Tianjin Conservatory, Tianjin, China, September 2018, performing works from the traditional repertoire and the premiere of Karina Glasinovic’s Violets.
Hello, this is the Mistral Duo! We invite you to listen to some recordings on YouTube:
DÚO MISTRAL
Selection of New Love Songs (Neue Liebeslieder) by Johannes Brahms, Op. 65, at Centro Cultural Gabriela Mistral, November 2015, Santiago, Chile.
DÚO MISTRAL
Sergei Rachmaninoff - Barcarole de la Suite No. 1 Op. 5, Liceo Eleuterio Ramírez de Osorno, Chile.
DÚO MISTRAL
W. A. Mozart: Sonata en Do Mayor, KV 19, Medellín, Colombia, abril de 2015.
DÚO MISTRAL
Note by Note - Piezas en forma de Pera de Erik Satie, Santiago, Chile, septiembre de 2015.
DÚO MISTRAL
Note by Note - Rapsodia Húngara No. 8 por Johannes Brahms, Santiago, Chile, septiembre de 2015.
DÚO MISTRAL
Grabado en vivo en la Sala Isidora Zegers, Universidad de Chile, Santiago de Chile. Miércoles 22 de octubre del 2014, Witold Lutosławski: Variaciones sobre un tema de Paganini a Dos Pianos.
DÚO MISTRAL
Dúo Mistral - Francis Poulenc: Sonata para Piano a cuatro manos, Sala Isidora Zegers, Santiago, Chile, septiembre de 2014.