🎧 #TPPSeason5Rewind | Episode 4: Dr. Isabel Pérez Dobarro

6 Jul 2025 · 2 min

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2:07

This content was created by The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. This content was uploaded by The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. This is a YouTube podcast-style interview titled "🎧 #TPPSeason5Rewind | Episode 4: Dr. Isabel Pérez Dobarro" (published July 6, 2025). The excerpt features host The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song interviewing Dr. Isabel Pérez Dobarro about her long-term research into works by women composers, programming/projects dating from around 2012 and intensifying from 2017, and the genesis of her first solo album during the COVID pandemic — including contacting and collaborating with contemporary composers such as Tania León, Julia Wolfe, and Gabriela Ortiz. The clip is conversational and focused on repertoire discovery and the creative/research process.

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So I saw that the real issue, you know, that if you're not told about this in the conservatory, in the bachelors, really, you know, it's so hard to then get to know this, these pieces. And it was a process of researching, of really getting into it and focusing on it. And I'm so happy about all the discoveries, great discoveries that I found along the way.
Wow. So it was like a few years of maybe research into this?
My research on women composers spans from really a long time. I've done also several programs starting, you know, probably around 2012, most importantly from 2017 on. And it was— and this album really came about, I would say, around COVID. So in the pandemic, I started working on that idea. I really wanted to do my first solo album because I had done before an album on Pauline Viardot, and that was a collaborative program with singers, two fantastic singers, Anna Tona, Corinna Feldmann, and also musicologist Patricia Kleinmann. So, you know, I really wanted to say, to focus on my first album, and I wanted to really think about what would it be about? What am I passionate about? What can I really, you know, project? Of my pianistic career and my pianistic interests, right? So I started thinking about it. I started researching about the composers. I started contacting some of the composers, which was so exciting and so amazing, really, because a lot of times you see these incredible names, right? Like Tania León, Julia Wolf, like Gabriela Ortiz, you know, that you see them every day with the Berlin Philharmonic, with the New York Philharmonic. And I was, Beginning, you know, I was scared. It was like, oh my God, I'm going to contact these people. So nice. All of them have been so supportive. They have been so wonderful. So they are geniuses as composers and as people. They're amazing.
Oh wow.
Truly a journey and a beautiful one.