This concert begins and ends with works by Spanish composers.   One of the first composers to write prolifically for keyboard, Antonio de Cabezón was innovative and influential.   His works anticipated the potential of both the organ and clavichord — later explored to a greater degree by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck and Manuel Rodrigues Coelho, both of whom were influenced by Cabezón — and his treatise on keyboard performance advocated the use of the thumb, which was unusual for the time. The present year is the five hundredth anniversary of his birth.

---

Nčstor Bayona-Pifaré was born in Catalonia, and began his musical education at the age of six in Lleida's conservatoire with Jordi Benseny.   At seventeen, he came to Manchester to study at the Royal Northern College of Music with Helen Krizos, where he took a Master's degree, ending with a dissertation "How J.S. Bach's counterpoint has influenced the Second Viennese School".   At the RNCM, he was awarded the highest prize given by the college, the Gold Medal, and was a winner of the Piano Recital Prize and the Piano Duo Prize (together with the Spanish pianist Luis Becerra).

In 2007, Nčstor made his solo recital debut at the prestigious Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona. He has participated in the Bermuda Piano Festival and the Lichfield Festival, and performed at the Ebina Hall in Japan, the Wigmore Hall, and at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester.

In 2008, Nčstor won a special prize in the Ibiza Piano Competition in which a member of the jury, Giovanni Doria Miglietta, invited him to perform in the festival Concerti in Villa Faravelli in Italy.