As the First Prize winner of the XIV Bartok-Kabalevsky-Prokofieff International Competition, Ciro Fodere is a pianist with a variety of musical interests. His latest performances have been described as “masterful, electric, by turns fiery and lyrical” by The Post and Courier, and as “technical sheen articulation, alert dynamic shading, and an imaginative approach” by The Miami Herald, which also raves “edge-of-the-seat thrilling”.
Besides soloing with both major orchestras in Uruguay, making his debut at age fourteen with the Philharmonic of Montevideo, Mr. Fodere has been a soloist three times with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Ignat Solzhenitsyn and David Stahl. He performed Rachmaninoff third concerto with the Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic, Mozart concerto No. 13 in Sendai, Japan, and the Gershwin concerto with the Charleston Symphony. Other orchestras include the Philharmonic of Extremadura, and the New World Symphony, where his most recent performance of the Rachmaninoff Variations on a theme by Paganini under Alasdair Neale direction was acclaimed by the audience and major newspapers in Miami.
His competition successes comprise the First Prize twice at the Pennsylvania State and consequently at the Eastern Division Music Teachers Competition. First laureates at the Southeastern Competition, US, the Association of Students of Music, and Jeunesses Musicales, Uruguay. He received the Liberace Foundation for the Performing and Creative Arts Award. He also won the Concerto Competition at Carnegie Mellon University, and the New World Symphony.
An avid chamber musician, Mr. Fodere has performed at the Londrina Music Festival, International Piano Series, and the Trujillo Music Festival. As an enthusiast of the Pittsburgh Concert Society, where he won the PNC Bank Prize, Mr. Fodere’s performances were broadcasted in the South Carolina and Pennsylvania Public Radio and TV. Since appearing in most cultural radio and television shows in Uruguay and Argentina, he rendered a live TV performance at the Jose Iturbi International Piano Competition in Spain.
Mr. Fodere is currently the piano professor at the New World School of the Arts, and a member of the SOBE Chamber Ensemble. He received a full scholarship at the College of Charleston for his undergraduate degree and a full assistantship at Carnegie Mellon University for his Master and Artist Diploma, where he studied with Enrique Graf and Earl Wild. He completed his four year fellowship at the New World Symphony, an organization that featured him regularly in chamber music and orchestral performances in Miami. Among accompanying musicians like Joshua Bell and Renee Fleming, he has also participated with members of the NWS in Santa Cecilia, Rome, Perugia, and Carnegie Hall, NY.
