Jorge Bolet

Born in Havana, Cuba on November 15, 1914, Jorge Bolet was a classical virtuoso pianist and educator. He studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and, in 1937, he gave his first solo recital and won the Naumburg Competition in New York. As part of the Army of Occupation, he was sent to Japan, where he conducted the Japanese premiere of the opera The Mikado. Jorge Bolet recorded Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 Op. 16 with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, which was released in 1953 on the Remington label. That same year, he released Recital Favorites on the Boston Records label. One of his most high profile projects was performing piano on the Academy Award-winning soundtrack to Song without End, a biopic on Franz Liszt. Because of his tendency to focus on romantic virtuosity, Jorge Bolet was overlooked by critics throughout most of the 1960s, but came to prominence again after a 1974 performance at Carnegie Hall in New York City. During this period - 1968 to 1977 - he served as Professor of Music at Indiana University. Jorge Bolet then signed a recording contract with Decca/London Records, which allowed international distribution of his recordings. He gained more commercial recognition in 1984 when Bolet Meets Rachmaninoff, a series of three masterclass programs, was broadcast on the A&E Network. His catalog consists of close to 70 titles including A Liszt Recital (1960), A Chopin Piano Recital (1961), Great Rachmaninoff Transcriptions (1973), and Debussy: 16 Préludes (1989). Jorge Bolet’s health deteriorated and in 1989, he underwent brain surgery. Never fully recovering, he died on October 16, 1990. Since his death, there have been many posthumous releases including the nine CD box set Liszt: The Piano Works.