"Marialy Pacheco meets Hamilton de Holanda, Joo Kraus, Rhani Krija, Max Mutzke, Omar Sosa and Miguel Zenon; six established figures from across the globe, each master of his own craft.With such a wealth of expertise and musicality on hand, a performance featuring all of these artists at the same time would inevitably mean that some aspects would be lost. So instead we have chosen to feature a series of separate rendezvous. And the Cuban pianist extracts the very best out of each individual encounter. The title of the CD, Duets, sums up this concept succinctly and although this may sound rather matter-of-fact, more lies behind it - much more. Chucho Valdes, the grand old man of Cuban jazz, once described the pianist as the greatest of young piano talents. At the time, she had just won a young musicians competition in Cuba, where Valdes headed up the jury. Pachecos mother conducts a choir which is famous both in Cuba and further afield. When the choir took part in the Bremen Choir Olympics in 2004, Marialy was there and she decided to remain in the city, home of the Stadtmusikanten (the town musicians which feature in the famous fairy tale written by the Brothers Grimm). After an extended stay in Australia, the pianist returned to Germany. Initially back to Bremen but she now lives in Dortmund. In 2012, Pacheco won the renowned Montreux Solo Piano Competition. When Marialy Pacheco performs one can truly sense her virtuosity, flair and sheer joy of making music without constraints, set free after her strict classical training. The six fellow musicians who Marialy Pacheco invited to join her in duet at the renowned Bauer Studios in Ludwigsburg could be similarly described. Musical citizens from around the world: a Puerto-Rican who lives in New York (Miguel Zenon), a Cuban whose home is in Barcelona (Omar Sosa), a Moroccan from Cologne (Rhani Krija), a Brazilian conqueror of the music world (Hamilton De Holanda), a trumpet player from Ulm, who recorded one of his albums in Havana (Joo Kraus) and a native of Waldshut-Tiengen, who is known throughout Europe not just for his participation in the Eurovision Song Contest (Max Mutzke). Musicians who are not stylistically blinkered, but who are passionate, individual and authentic and endowed with the virtues which are the basic prerequisites for performing as part of a duo: the ability to listen, to engage fully with their counterpart and to leave their ego at the studio door. [...] In DUETS, Marialy Pacheco practices the most intimate, direct and intensive form of musical exchange and in doing so, throws the door wide open."
