Press
… This duo arouses the music lover’s devotion wherever they go.
Laura del Castillo
La Tribuna, Cuenca, Spain
In a Magical Garden
The triple celebration of the centenary of Eric Satie’s birth, the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the death of Georges Bizet and the birth of Maurice Ravel allowed the Duo Scarbo to weave an engaging and intelligent program of pieces for piano four-hands. The understanding between the two pianists was absolute, with perfect harmony in articulating, coloring, and regulating the sound, brilliantly resolving the passages of hand crossing. And, above all, they fully identified when it came to lending each piece their own particular and appropriate expressive touch. […]
Reed full Review
Andrés Moreno
Diario de Sevilla, July 20, 2025
[…] The pianists who form this duo are magnificent. The complex interpretations that performers always face when playing a single instrument were resolved through a remarkable technical and expressive connection. The interplay of their roles, sometimes in the transition of the melodies from one hand to the other, created a synchronicity that sometimes seemed like just two hands on the keyboard. Equally excellent was the way they managed the dynamic ranges and the conjugation of color and timbre, all within a brilliant sonic space resulting from a clean fingering and a subtle and calm, or incisive and piercing phrasing, as required. […] These two pianists have offered a magnificent concert as a duo. Congratulations […]
Tomás Payés Cabezas
Review of the Duo Scarbo Concert on July 19, 2025 in Seville
Nights in the Gardens of the Real Alcázar
The Scarbó Duo, formed by the pianists Laura Sánchez and Cristina Lucio-Villegas, presents a suggestive program entitled Three French Surnames […] This tribute to three essential figures of the French repertoire is embodied in a carefully curated selection of works for piano four-hands, performed with the sensitivity and experience that characterizes this established duo […] A concert full of color, evocativeness, and virtuosity, which confirms the Duo Scarbo as an undisputed reference in the repertoire for piano four-hands.
El Giraldillo
July 20, 2025
About the concert offered by the Scarbó Duo on July 19, 2025 in Seville
Nights in the Gardens of the Real Alcázar
The mark left behind takes us on a musical journey through three decades of José Luis Turina’s work for piano four-hands and two pianos, performed with precision and sensitivity by the Duo Scarbo. […] From the outset, the energy of Variations on Themes by Turina sets the tone. […] The pianists bring each section to life, capturing the essence of each variation. The same care is taken in the Sonata and Toccata, a work full of ideas and contrasts that, under their hands, flows naturally. […] In the Three Palindromes, Sánchez and Lucio-Villegas manage to highlight the technical complexity of the work without losing its coherence and freshness. In the Variations and Theme from Mozart’s Theme and Variations from “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman!”, the pianists play with dynamic contrasts and harmonic construction without losing the delicate humor that Turina imprints. […] Finally, Encore alla turca closes the album with a touch of irreverence, […] in the hands of the Duo Scarbo it shines with great ease. […] The Duo Scarbo injects life and color into each of their works. This record is recommended for piano lovers and contemporary music fans alike. It is a journey through Turina’s personal and musical history, brilliantly performed.
Francisco J. Balsera
Melómano Magazine No. 312, December 2024
José Luis Turina. Complete Works for Piano Duo. Scarbó Duo (Laura Sánchez and Cristina Lucio-Villegas) NIBIUS (1 CD)
[…] This album was recorded by a high-quality duo, Laura Sánchez and Cristina Lucio-Villegas, who are known as Duo Scarbo […]. It is an excellent opportunity to discover the great music Turina composed for two pianists, whether four-handed or as a duo, and to discover the art of two highly skilled pianists who form an extraordinarily well-coordinated duo.
Tomás Marco
Scherzo Magazine, No. 411, November 2024
The Dúo Scarbó pays tribute to José Luis Turina
Madrid, Spain. Conservatorio Superior de Música (Manuel de Falla Hall). November 4, 2022. COMA’22. Dúo Scarbó (Laura Sánchez y Cristina Lucio-Villegas, pianos). Works of José Luis Turina
José Luis Turina is one of the most important personalities among the current Spanish composers and clearly leads his generational group, so his concert appearances are always interesting; and even more so if, as in this case, it is a tribute in the form of a monograph that the COMA Festival offers him on his 70th birthday. The concert was also an opportunity to talk about the album entitled José Luis Turina Works for piano duo, which will be presented soon, recorded by the Scarbó Duo (Laura Sánchez and Cristina Lucio-Villegas, pianos) who demonstrated their technical and musical competence in a recital that, no doubt, encouraged us to listen to the recording, since both, works and performance, were excellent.
They are important works and were impeccably performed. Laura Sánchez and Cristina Lucio-Villegas are two pianists with broad technique and remarkable expressive capacity. Besides, as a Dúo Scarbó, not only do they complement each other magnificently, but they also acquire a personality and a capacity that makes each work shine perfectly. If it is true that the compositions that were heard are of an undeniable category and importance, they were offered in the best and most appropriate way, constituting one of the most interesting concerts of this COMA Festival (…)
Tomás Marco
On the exciting wings of rhythm
The rhythm became the great protagonist of the recital, already from Gardel’s Por una cabeza, in which the cleanliness of the melodic line and the strength of the contrasts shone (…) Tempo and phrasing played their part in a very special way in Adiós, Nonino by a very marked rubato, or in Gershwin’s rocking second prelude, supported by an almost ostinato bass. The jazzy syncopations of these preludes directed the attention to the rhythmic component, which became truly hypnotic in Stravinsky. The Scarbó Duo achieved an exemplary, impetuous, effusive, exciting interpretation of an extremely complex piece, which also requires a very tight physical understanding so as not to get stuck in the abundant hand-crossings that music demands. An Apollonian vision as it was brilliant, of enormous cleanliness, with a percussive component magnificently captured, allowed at the same time the melodic themes, so interwoven by Stravinsky here, to find their space and fly when needed, amid the rhythmic din. Delirious and delicious at the same time (…)
Pablo J. Vayón
Diario de Sevilla, Spain
Quality music at “Los Jameos”
(…) The interpretation of these two artists overwhelmed the public who filled up the seats of this emblematic Auditorium.
La Provincia, Las Palmas, Lanzarote, Spain
Dúo Scarbó Shines
Continuous melodic lines, musical thoughts that, though fragmented between the two pianos, resound absolutely organically to the ear, calibration of energy, of dramatic tension, unity of concept and interpretation, the Dúo Scarbó has triumphed magnificently over the challenges presented in the repertoire offered (…) the interpretations demonstrated both elegance and temperament (…)
Víctor R. Castro Gómez
El Vocero, Puerto Rico
Sembrich’s four hands sell-out
This was likely the event of the classical chamber music year—extremely interesting music played by stellar musicians.
(…) The program itself was top shelf, offering beautiful and engaging readings, flawlessly executed, of some rather difficult stuff. (…) In five words: Lucky to have been there.
Cathy DeDe
The Chronicle, Glens Falls, New York, EEUU
A masterful musical duo
…The execution and passion evinced by these two exquisitely performers and the technique and control of theri hands and arms were Little short of brilliant.
Peggy Ann Bliss
The San Juan Star, Puerto Rico
From Domestic Piano to Concert Virtuosity
(…) The performers evoked the various orchestral sonorities in a diaphanous interpretation where the different planes were never clumped together (something altogether too frequent in this type of repertoire) (…) Not only in the rhythmic nerve of [Milhaud] but also in the never -cold transparency with which they offered the complex pages of the Rachmaninov, the Dúo Scarbó displayed its outstanding synchronicity and technique with a repertoire of great brilliance. We can only hope that we will hear them again…They deserve it.
Javier Sayas
El Periódico de Aragón, Zaragoza, Spain
Fireworks for Four Hands
A special concert as remarkable concert. (…) In a packed Brahms Hall of the [Detmold] Conservatory of Music the two of them ignited fireworks of four hands, for which the audience thanked them over and over again with thundering applause.
Mostly students attended – with open eyes and ears, seeking glimpses and impressions for their own future. And they must have experienced with full awe how these two pianists melted into one homogenous sound through an exquisitely cultivated and inspiringly vivacious performance that turned a single grand piano into a whole orchestra or brought two grand pianos into a fascinating unity, sporting at times a sunny seriousness or an intensive pathos with an engaging and somewhat elf-like give and take beween two worlds, a fascinating unit and an exciting dialogue between two poles.
(…) These two pianists elevated these difficult passages to mere attributes of lively music, absent of any virtuostic vanities. (…) the audience’s hands and feet never ceased applauding.
Lippischer Landes-Zeitung, Germany
Re-validation of the Dúo Scarbó
Their recital, dedicated to compositions for four hands, validated once again the impression of pure mastery that was the most outstanding aspect of their previous presentation.
The audience (…) had before it a true team, without cracks or fissures, “a marriage of true minds”, as described the exalted Elizabethan poet to this almost mystic fusion of two subjectivities. For the breathtaking conceptual and interpretative synchronicity which manifests itself in the executions of the Dúo Scarbó does not leave any room for doubt about the congeniality that exists between its members (…) the ladies displayed a singular energy throughout their elocution (…) The performers displayed an amazing technical control (…)
Víctor R. Castro Gómez
El Vocero, Puerto Rico
Our new favorite duo is back to open GF Symphony “Musicbridge”
…Their musicianship, dazzling technique and show-womanship have won the hearts of local fans- and the esteemed deBlastis series invited them back, yet again, to perform…
William Martin
The Chronicle, New York, EEUU
The Elegance of Hammel and Sánchez
Extremely synchronized and equipped with a pianism that could easily transform from vigorous to extremely delicate (…), they have also astonished for their extraordinary confidence which allowed them to execute the entire program by memory, a rare occurrence in piano duo performance (…) Also displaying an extremely careful use of pedal, the two pianists have convinced in every piece, bringing out of the well-attended audience an ever-increasing applause…
L’Arena, Verona, Italy
Delicious European Evening
The child-like playful air [of Poulenc’s Concerto in D Minor for 2 Pianos], percussive and full of beautiful melodies, floated to the surface and shone splendidly in the interpretation of the pianists…. They came across stupendously synchronized and balanced, and yet they also showed evidence of their respective temperaments. The audience received their performance appreciatively…Bravi!
Jorge Martínez Solá
El Nuevo Día, Puerto Rico
Duo Scarbó: Four Handed Sensibility
‘Impressive’ can be the adjective used to qualify Wednesday night’s performance of the Duo Scarbó, especially with issues such as coordination at the piano, both technically and musically. And if this were to seem like little, they offered one of the most attractive programs of the recently premiered Contemporary Music Series. …. It was a solemn interpretation, almost mystical, of an awe-inspiring piece of music [Crumb’s Celestial Mechanics]… After numerous applause, the duo delighted us with the Habanera by Xavier Montsalvatge as an encore, in a meticulous interpretation and with great rhythmic feeling, which added a sweet aftertaste to the evening.
Alejandro Delgado
Málaga hoy, Spain
Duo Scarbo, two pianist, shone at Hyde
If you missed Duo Scarbo’s piano performance of the Works of Ravel and Gershwin at the Hyde Museum on July 17, you may have missed the most ensaging concert of the summer. These two exquisite performers were as mesmerizing to watch as they were captivating to hear.
Playing with a passionate ease, Elena Hammel and Laura Sánchez opened the program with oen piano for four hands. In this intimate form, their bodies moved in synchrony with beguiling grace.
(As a novice, I found the brief introductory comments offered about each piece enriched my experience).
(…) Before the last note faded, the audience sprang to a standing ovation
Maureen Dye
The Chronicle, New York, EEUU
The mastery of the wise orator
A pleasant feeling for a concert that turned out to be one of the bests of the season, worth being remembered by the audience.
(…) The two pianists mastered a perfect communication between themselves and with the rest of the orchestra. Accompanying with a precise sound, like in Turtles of The Elephant, the more soloistic passages approached us to a transparent sound, that sometimes sounded like only one piano (…).