Marc-André Hamelin Explores the Piano Music of Prolific 20th-Century Brazilian Composer Radamés Gnattali

Bridging traditional classical styles with popular Brazilian dance rhythms, the new album Brasiliana is the 93rd recording by the 11-time Grammy Award nominee

Release date: January 15, 2027

Listen to the first single Alma brasileira HERE 

Celebrated for his rare sensitivity, technical precision, and insatiable musical curiosity, Canadian pianist and 11-time Grammy Award nominee Marc-André Hamelin releases the new album—and his remarkable 93rd recording—Brasiliana on January 15, 2027 on Hyperion Records. Spotlighting the piano works of prolific 20th-century Brazilian composer Radamés Gnattali, an indispensable figure for the understanding of modern Latin American music, Hamelin once again proves why he is regarded as one of the greatest pianists of our time and owner of one of the broadest and most respected discographies of classical music.

Descended from Italian and German immigrants, Gnattali was born in Porto Alegre (capital of Rio Grande do Sul State) on January 27, 1906 and died in Rio de Janeiro on February 3, 1988. Also a conductor, arranger, and pianist, Gnattali produced a concert oeuvre encompassing over 300 compositions, including pieces for instruments largely ignored by his contemporaries: mandolin, accordion, harmonica, cavaquinho, electric guitar, and drums or percussion characteristic of the samba schools of Rio de Janeiro. It was these works that finally allowed great names of popular music to grace the stages of the great temples of classical music as concert performers.

On this album, Hamelin offers the greater part of Gnattali’s work for solo piano, some 120 years after the composer’s birth. “Those unfamiliar with either this formidable Brazilian composer or his modern-day Canadian interpreter will be struck first by the vigor, freshness, and simplicity of the compositions themselves, and then by the transparency, delicacy, and acuity of the interpretations,” says liner notes author and Rio de Janeiro University professor Roberto Gnattali, nephew of the composer. “Marc-André makes a personal but respectful reading of the author’s writings, at the same time faithful to the spirit of Brazilianness present in each work, the forms and styles of Brazilian regional music: the choro, the samba, the valsa seresteira (serenade waltz), the baião.”

For instance, the album selection Alma brasileira (1930), currently available for download, is one of the genuinely “popular” compositions by Gnattali. Although it does not fully obey the traditional formal patterns of choro, Alma brasileira nonetheless reveals how much Gnattali assimilated from the pianism and pianistic slang of the intuitive musicians with whom he lived during his early years in Rio de Janeiro. In return for a generous performance, the young Gnatalli would transcribe the compositions of these excellent pianists exactly as they played them—a far cry from the abbreviated and bland notation of music publishers at the time.

Later album selections reveal Gnattali’s influences as pianist, arranger, and conductor at the National Radio of Rio de Janeiro, the largest radio station in Latin America. Here—amid the daily bustle of producing arrangements for the station’s programming—Gnattali experimented, tested, and premiered many of his chamber compositions, concertos, and symphonies, a luxury inconceivable for almost all classical composers of his time. Additionally, Gnattali was probably the only composer-pianist of classical music in Brazil to lead, for more than three decades, a sextet—sometimes a quintet—comprising two pianos, accordion, electric guitar, drums, and double bass, whose performances moved with natural ease between the popular and the erudite, aesthetic languages previously considered irreconcilable.

On his global performance tours, Hamelin regularly delights audiences by offering Gnattali’s vibrant choros as encores. Revered for his fearless exploration of neglected and lesser-known 20th-century music, Hamelin’s championing of Gnattali aligns naturally with his lifelong dedication to overlooked composers such as Godowsky, Medtner, and Sorabji, among many others.

Tracklist – Gnattali: Brasiliana

      1. Canhoto [2'20]
      2. Vaidosa No. 1 [3'37]
      Brasiliana No 4 [11'28]
           3. Prenda minha (moda gaúcha) [2'11]
           4. Samba-canção (Rio de Janeiro) [3'19]
           5. Desafio (Nordeste) [2'56]
           6. Marcha de Rancho (Rio de Janeiro) [3'02]
      7. Moto continuo No. 1 [2'05]
      8. Carinhosa [2'39]
      9. Manhosamente [2'41]
      10. Vaidosa No. 2 [3'11]
      11. Tocata [3'27]
      12. Brasiliana No. 5 [12'25]
      13. Alma brasileira [5'04]
      14. Preludio No. 3 'Cigarra' [0'38]
      15. Noturno 'Samba-canção' [3'12]
      16. Negaceando [2'43]
      17. Perfumosa [4'07]
      18. Maneirando [1'56]
      19. Pretensiosa [2'35]
      20. Choro [2'17]
      21. Fim de tarde [3'41]
      22. Rapsódia brasileira [9'48]

Recorded: November 2025, at St. George’s, Headstone, Harrow, UK
Producer: Andrew Keener
Sound Engineer: Oscar Torres
Total running time: 79 minutes, 54 seconds

Press Quotes

“Hamelin marshals his considerable skills for a reading of the 'Hammerklavier' that clarifies and illuminates rather than simply overpowers.” -- The New York Times

"His previous offerings of his own music were rich, but his latest self-portrait album is on another level. ... It’s probably time to add the epaulet of “rising composer” to this pianist’s already imposing biography." -- The New York Times

“Marc-André Hamelin, the prince of pianist-composers” (The New York Times)

“I don’t recall ever giving a recording the full ten stars. But then, I hadn’t heard Hamelin play his own work” (BBC Music Magazine)

“When Hamelin plays, you stop and listen” (The Times)

“Awesomely impressive” (The Telegraph)

“Playing that pushes at the limits of what is physically possible” (Financial Times)

“Truly astonishing” (Limelight, Australia)

About Marc-André Hamelin

Pianist Marc-André Hamelin, a “performer of near-superhuman technical prowess” (The New York Times), is acclaimed worldwide for his unrivaled consummate musicianship. He continues to amass praise for his brilliant pianism in the great works of the repertoire, and for his intrepid exploration of the rarities of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. He regularly performs around the globe with the leading orchestras and conductors of our time, and gives recitals at major concert venues and festivals worldwide.

Hamelin’s 2026-27 season spans Asia, North America, and Europe, with a wide breadth of orchestral, recital, and chamber music engagements. He opens the season at the Tsinandali Festival in Georgia, where he gives a solo recital and joins violinist Lisa Batiashvili for the Chausson Concert. He then tours Asia, performing Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto with the Korean National Symphony Orchestra under Roberto Abbado and with the Nanchang Symphony Orchestra led by Yu Ji, along with solo recitals in Chengdu, Tianjin, Wuhan, and Xiamen.

In North America, orchestral highlights include performances with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and Gemma New; Vancouver Symphony under Otto Tausk; the Utah Symphony led by Markus Poschner; the Milwaukee Symphony and Kwame Ryan; the Oregon Symphony under Shiyeon Sung; the Orchestre symphonique de Québec under Clemens Schuldt; the Rochester Philharmonic with Andreas Delfs; and a chamber program with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Recital highlights include the world premiere of his 24 Preludes commissioned by Chamber Music in Napa Valley, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Merkin Hall in New York, Keyboard Concerts in Fresno. In addition, he tours Beethoven cello sonatas with Johannes Moser to the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, the Saskatoon Symphony, and the Ladies’ Morning Musical Club in Montréal, joins the Dover Quartet for the Tuesday Evening Concert Series in Charlottesville, and the Balourdet Quartet at Seattle Chamber Music Society.

In Europe, Hamelin appears with the Hamburger Symphoniker, with the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana  under Maximiano Valdés, and joins the Leonore Orchestra. Recitals take him to Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw, Milan’s Società dei Concerti, the Berlin Piano Festival, the Kronberg Academy, the Cambridge Music Festival at Trinity College, and Brussels’ Flagey, along with appearances in Copenhagen, The Hague, Gdansk, and Liechtenstein, and a tour of Italy that includes Turin’s Lingotto Musica, the Festival Internazionale del Mediterraneo in Bari, Rome, Pisa, and Casale Monferrato.

An exclusive recording artist for Hyperion Records, Hamelin has released more than 90 notable recordings of a broad range of solo, orchestral, and chamber repertoire. Recent acclaimed releases include Found Objects / Sound Objects, a recording of contemporary works; Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata, Op. 106, and Sonata in C major, Op. 2, No. 3; and the Dvorák and Florence Price quintets with the Takács Quartet.

Also a noted composer, Hamelin has written more than 30 works. Many, including his Études and Toccata on “L’homme armé” – commissioned by the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition – are published by Edition Peters. He performed the Toccata in 2023 on NPR’s Tiny Desk alongside works by C.P.E. Bach and William Bolcom. In 2024, he premiered his Mazurka which was commissioned by the Library of Congress to celebrate 100 years of concerts. His 2024 album New Piano Works, featuring nine original pieces, is a survey of some of his own recent works, exhibiting his formidable skill as a composer-pianist whose music imaginatively and virtuosically taps into his musical forebears. “His previous offerings of his own music were rich, but his latest self-portrait album is on another level,” wrote The New York Times.

Hamelin is the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the German Record Critics’ Association, and over 20 of its quarterly awards. Other honors include eight Juno Awards, 11 Grammy nominations, the 2018 Jean Gimbel Lane Prize from Northwestern University, and the Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award from the Ontario Arts Foundation. Hamelin is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Québec, and a member of the Royal Society of Canada. Born in Montreal, Hamelin lives in the Boston area with his wife, Cathy Fuller, a producer and host at Classical WCRB. He also teaches at the New England Conservatory of Music.