Francisco Poyato

When I was a child playing compositions from different eras, I remember a pleasure, like a nostalgia, that fueled the desire not to abandon that space. Thus, without deciding it, the piano accompanied me since childhood. Playing, dreaming, and channeling emotions, it became a part of me.

Curiosity to explore other aspects of music while growing up with my instrument led me to studies in composition and orchestral conducting, as well as the practice of dance music. Playing and singing at festivities brought me closer to the popular way of understanding rhythms and playing with music.

I began working with other instrumentalists and singers. That was magical! The music conveyed how the words felt, and the words conveyed what the music said. Hartmut Höll and Mitsuko Shirai, my lied teachers at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, showed me what that magic consisted of. With them, I learned that a lied was the expression of an experience. Imagination, senses, emotions, energy. The body, the instrument. A song, a lived moment.

That new way of conceiving interpretation sparked concerns and desires that have since shaped my path as a performer.

The desire to delve into the relationship between music, poetry, and experience initially led me to attend masterclasses with Edith Mathis, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Thomas Hampson, Paul Shillawsky, Robert Holl, Barbara Bonney, Dimitri Bashkirov, and Paul Badura-Skoda, among others. I also approached historical performance on the fortepiano to understand how this relationship was conceived in that era, with Anthony Spiri.

From the desire to bring this experience to the stage, concerts were born with Mitsuko Shirai, Ruth Ziesak, Assumpta Mateu, Xavier Sabata, Núria Rial, Olatz Saitua, Elena Copons, Judith van Wanroij, Lluis Vilamajó, Claron McFadden, Marta Mathéu, Roger Padullés.