Aldo López-Gavilán Featured Extensively in Fanfare Magazine’s November/December Issue
New feature interview, Michael Butterman interview and multiple reviews spotlight López-Gavilán as composer, pianist and orchestral artist
The November/December 2026 issue of Fanfare Magazine devotes extensive attention to concert pianist and composer Aldo López-Gavilán, coinciding with the release of Emporium: The Music of Aldo López-Gavilán on Reference Recordings.
The issue includes a major feature interview with López-Gavilán, a separate conversation with conductor Michael Butterman, and several reviews of the new album, offering a wide-ranging portrait of an artist whose work moves naturally between composition, classical performance, improvisation and the orchestra.
In the feature article, “A Guided Tour Through Aldo López-Gavilán’s Emporium,” interviewer Robert Schulslaper traces the musical world behind Emporium, from López-Gavilán’s family and classical training to his relationship with jazz, improvisation and orchestral writing. Fanfare introduces him through the unusual combination of Western classical tradition, Cuban music, jazz, improvisation, compositional versatility and virtuoso pianism that has shaped his career.
The interview gives López-Gavilán considerable space to describe that musical identity in his own words. Speaking about the way his music is created, he offers one of the clearest summaries of his process:
“For me, improvisation is my playground.”
For López-Gavilán, composition and improvisation are not separate disciplines. He explains that ideas often begin spontaneously at the piano before becoming fixed works, describing composition as the moment when an improvisation decides that it wants to remain.
That same balance shapes his work as a performer. In discussing the architecture of his improvisations and concerts, López-Gavilán tells Fanfare:
“Freedom and structure are not opposites; they complement each other.”
He describes performance as a constantly changing exchange among musicians and audiences, where spontaneity can coexist with direction, balance and formal shape.
Elsewhere in the interview, López-Gavilán speaks about what he ultimately wants his music to communicate:
“More than anything, I hope listeners feel honesty.”
He goes on to explain that he does not compose in order to fit a stylistic category, but to create a genuine connection and encourage curiosity, imagination and openness in the listener.
The issue also features an extended interview with Michael Butterman, Music Director of the Boulder Philharmonic and conductor of the Reference Recordings release. Butterman recalls discovering Emporium through a broadcast and being struck immediately by a quality he describes as its “immediate listening appeal”, while emphasizing that the work continues to reveal greater structural detail with repeated study.
Butterman has now performed Emporium with López-Gavilán ten times across several U.S. orchestras. His account of the response from both musicians and audiences is especially striking. He notes that orchestral players regularly approach him during rehearsals to tell him how much they enjoy the writing, while:
“Audiences are always on their feet afterwards”
and immediately ask how they can hear the work again.
Butterman is equally emphatic about López-Gavilán’s command of the orchestra. Recalling his surprise at discovering that Aldo had orchestrated Emporium himself, he praises the score for its “finesse, imagination, and an ear for tone color”, qualities he associates with composers possessing long experience writing for symphony orchestra.
His comments about López-Gavilán as a performer are equally personal. Butterman says that “Aldo radiates joy”, while praising his energy, pianistic facility and command of complex polyrhythmic writing.
Critical acclaim for Emporium
The album itself receives substantial attention from Fanfare’s critics.
Dominic Hartley praises not only the individual works but López-Gavilán’s broader compositional identity. Writing about Emporium, the Clarinet Concerto and Hechizos, he describes López-Gavilán’s performance as having “both authority and vision” and concludes that the recording makes a compelling case for him as:
“a composer of uncommon fluency, imagination, and communicative power.”
Hartley closes simply: “An exhilarating release.”
Michael Vaillancourt similarly emphasizes López-Gavilán’s ability to connect directly with listeners, calling him:
“first and foremost a great communicator”
and noting that, within his chosen musical language, López-Gavilán “often dazzles.” He describes much of the album as bursting with energy and distinctive character.
Phillip Scott focuses particularly on López-Gavilán the pianist, calling him “a galvanizing presence at the piano” and praising the solo writing in Hechizos for its expressive nuance and formidable technical demands.
Taken together, the interviews and reviews in Fanfare offer one of the most comprehensive critical portraits to date of López-Gavilán’s work as a composer, concert pianist and orchestral soloist. They also arrive at an important moment for Emporium, whose Reference Recordings release has brought the concerto, the Clarinet Concerto and Hechizos together in their world-premiere recordings.
For López-Gavilán, the attention reinforces something that has always been central to his music: the idea that classical form, improvisation, rhythmic energy, orchestral color and direct communication with an audience do not need to occupy separate worlds. In his own words, the goal remains remarkably simple:
“More than anything, I hope listeners feel honesty.”
Explore Emporium
https://emporium.aldomusica.com
Virtual studio and discography
https://studio.aldomusica.com