Praised by critics in her début recordings, the Brazilian Débora Halász is among the leading South American pianists of her generation. Winner of the most important competitions in her native country, she made her début with the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra at the age of fifteen. Four years later the Critics Prize (APCA) named her the best soloist of the year for her interpretation of Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto. In 1989 she went with a DAAD scholarship to Germany, and since then has been invited to many European, South and North American Music Festivals and Concert Series. With her husband she established in 1993 the Duo Halász, for guitar and piano / harpsichord, arousing further critical acclaim. She has also partnered musicians such as Lavard Skou Larsen, Sebastian Hess and Patrick Gallois. Her ambitious recording of the complete piano music of Heitor Villa-Lobos, a project of some eight CDs, has been enthusiastically acclaimed by the international press. She has also recorded for BIS works by Ginastera, Shostakovich and Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Her passion for baroque music led her to a search for a historically accurate instrument for that repertoire, and she plays a historic copy of a Haas instrument, dated 1734, specially made for her. It is on this instrument that she has embarked on the recording of the complete works for harpsichord by the Portuguese baroque composer Carlos Seixas, a co-production between Naxos and Bavarian Radio.
