ABOUT
Picture by Oliver Röckle
Magdalena Cerezo is a pianist and performer specialised in contemporary music. A central component of her practice as an artist is the research and exploration of the piano's implementation in the 21st Century, with the aim of creating new ways of integrating the instrument with both performance and multimedia art. Within this framework, she commissions new compositions and curates diverse projects, which call into question the inherent eurocentristic vision of piano culture.
During her career, Magdalena has collaborated with composers such as Bernhard Lang, Wolfgang Rihm, Beat Furrer, Heinz Holliger, Helmut Lachenmann, Rebecca Saunders, Mark Andre, Rolf Riehm, Johannes Kreidler, Adriana Hölszky, and Brian Ferneyhough, and has premiered works by Peter Ablinger, Mauricio Sotelo, Fabián Panisello, Benjamin Scheuer, Eliav Kohl, and Sara Glojnarić, among others.
Furthemore, she is an honorific alumni member of Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, and has played with Ulysses Ensemble, Karlsruhe Opera Theater's Orchestra, Plural Ensemble (Madrid), Ensemble Courage Dresden, and New Music Forum Ensemble Ljubljana. Magdalena is a founding member of duo LAB51 and trio f:t, as well as the pianist of Arxis Ensemble.
Recently, she premiered new works by composers such as Sara Glojnarić (Holitopia Festival Berlin), Manuel Hidalgo Navas (Festival de Royaumont), Sophie Youjung-Lee (Chamber opera 'Antigone von Sophokles'), and Marc Sinan (AIODE-Paradise). She also toured with Arxis Ensemble, performing chamber and ensemble concerts in A Coruña, Tenerife, and Gran Canaria (Festival Internacional de Música de Canarias). Additionally, she closed the 2024 edition of the Musica Nova Reutlingen series with a solo recital featuring a premiere by Benjamin Scheuer, alongside works by Poppe, Walshe, Glojnarić, and Kreidler, and gave her first public performance of Luigi Nono's iconic ...sofferte onde serene... at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid (RESIS Festival).
Further highlights of the 2023-2024 season included the piano duo program El minimalismo a dos pianos, performed with pianist Alberto Rosado as part of the prestigious chamber music series of the BBVA Foundation in Madrid, and the world premiere of The Day Fanny Mendelssohn Died at ECLAT (LAB51/Óscar Escudero & Belenish Moreno-Gil). Earlier on, she performed nearly the entirety of Rolf Riehm's solo piano works at the festival weit! neue musik weingarten, sharing the lineup with artists such as Ensemble Mosaik, Sarah Maria Sun, and Trio Accanto. During the same period, Magdalena took part in numerous chamber music and ensemble performances at festivals and series such as ENSEMS, Kunstfest Weimar, ZeitGenuss, Musica in Prossimità, MetaWorld Contemporary Art Festival, and Musik21Niedersachsen (NDR Kleiner Sendesaal), collaborating with formations such as LAB51, Arxis Ensemble, and Marc Sinan Company.
Some relevant projects from the 2022 season included a lecture-concert on Xenakis' piano music alongside musicologist Marina Hervás and visual artist Marta Verde at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), a performance of Mantra by Karlheinz Stockhausen alongside Prof. Markus Stange at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe, as well as concerts at RESIS Festival with both LAB51 and Arxis Ensemble under the baton of Beat Furrer, at Auditorio Sony (Madrid), featuring world premieres by Fabián Panisello's studio alongside Donatienne Michel-Dansac., at Royaumont Foundation, and Théâtre de l'Alliance Française (Paris) as part of the show Générations France Musique from Radio France (LAB51).
Furthermore, Magdalena was an artist-in-residence at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris (together with Johanna Vargas), and was awarded a stipend from the Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg.
During the season 2019-20, she received a support grant from Landeshaupstadt Stuttgart and Musik der Jahrhunderte for the first part of her long term project [Ex_Piano_Revisited_Library], including two video productions and a concert at Theaterhaus Stuttgart, within the series Südseite Nachts. Since 2018, she maintains a close artistic relationship with german composer Rolf Riehm, which translates into multiple presentations and performances of his piano works in Frankfurt, München, Darmstadt, Stuttgart, Dresden, and Ljubljana. In recent years, she has earned accolades such as the first prize of the John Cage Interpretation Award as a pianist of duo LAB51, the first prize of the Kulturfonds Baden Competition for the interpretation of Wolfgang Rihm's music, and a full scholarship from Ulysses Network to participate at the Call for Young Performers curated by Divertimento Ensemble Milano. In 2015, she was personally selected by Helmut Lachenmann to interpret his piano work Serynade at ZeitGenuss Festival in Karlsruhe.
Magdalena has performed in venues such as Auditorio Nacional de Madrid, Kölner Philharmonie, Berliner Philharmonie, Radialsystem V, Staatsoper Stuttgart, Galvin Hall, Theaterhaus Stuttgart, Slovenian Philharmonic Hall or Centre Pompidou Paris, and has taken part at festivals such as Darmstädter Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, Time of Music, Impuls, ManiFeste, Donaueschinger Musiktage, NUNC!3 (Northwestern University Chicago), Der Sommer in Stuttgart, RESIS, Südseite Nachts, and Mixtur Barcelona, among others.
Her performances have been broadcasted by RTVE, Deutschlandfunk, Radio Bremen, HR, SWR, Radio France, and Digital Concert Hall. During the 2018-19 season, she was correspondant in Germany for the contemporary music radio broadcast Música viva (Spanish National Radio).
Recent CD recordings featuring works by Sara Glojnarić, Rebecca Saunders and Wolfgang Rihm have been released by KAIROS (Pure Bliss/2023) and Naxos-Capriccio (Karlsruher Schule/2021). In 2024, her album Szenarium was released by the Pantopia Music platform, featuring piano works by composers Sergei Zagny and Maria de Alvear.
Magdalena believes in the piano as one of the greatest representatives of musical avant-garde since its inception. Coming from a family of great music lovers, she grew up surrounded by the repertoire of the great masters of classicism and romanticism, which served as the soundtrack of her daily life. She decided to dedicate herself professionally to music, motivated by her early chamber music experiences with works by Brahms and Fauré, among others. At the same time, from a very young age, she felt the need to explore new languages and engage in dialogue with the creators of her time, showing a vocational and immediate interest in contemporary music. After graduating with honors from the University of Music Salamanca, under the guidance of professors such as Sophia Hase, Eduardo Ponce and Alberto Rosado, Magdalena moved to Germany, where she is currently based. Between 2011-2015, she obtained two masters degrees in classical piano and chamber music at the University of Music Karlsruhe. From 2016 onwards, she continued her studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart under Prof. Nicolas Hodges, where she finished a third master's degree in contemporary music in 2018, and a Concert Soloist Degree in 2021.
Since 2018, she works as an adjunct instructor for Contemporary Voice Training/Contemporary Lied and Performance at the University of Music in Karlsruhe.
Upcoming engagements include a solo recital at Inselfestival Hombroich, featuring works by Rolf Riehm (world premiere) and Georg Kröll, as well as an invitation as a guest lecturer for a workshop on piano extended techniques and contemporary piano notation at the Conservatorio Profesional Victoria de los Ángeles in Madrid. She will also perform with Duo LAB51 in Vienna (SUENA Festival) and Linz (Sonic Lab), presenting world premieres by Natalia Laguens and Jorge Gómez Elizondo, alongside Helmut Lachenmann’s iconic Got Lost. As every year, she will take part in the RESIS Festival as the pianist of ARXIS Ensemble, under the baton of Daniel Huertas, performing ensemble works by Wolfgang Rihm and Helmut Lachenmann.
"Capable of a delicate and transparent pianism, as well as strenght and an overwhelming force"
"One of the best spanish pianists for contemporary repertoire"
mundoclasico, Paco Yáñez