Leonardo Balada, the Catalan composer who went to New York in 1956 to study composition, has been a powerful creative force for more than three decades. These accessible and stimulating pieces span the composer’s career, from the romantic early Music in Four Movements to the Mini-Miniatures of 2010, which are dedicated to Pablo Amorós. Preludis Obstinants, commissioned and premièred by the great pianist Alicia de Larrocha, was described as ‘a bold five-part piece of thunder…each section suggesting how much the instrument can shape creative imagination.’ (The Philadelphia Inquirer)