Name: Ranallo-Tapia Duo
Start: 2025-01-12T15:00:00-05:00
Location: Settlement Music School (Mary Louise Curtis Branch)

The Ranallo-Tapia Duo showcases music from across the Americas, blending classical, jazz, samba, Afro-Cuban, and other world music styles. Their performances feature a captivating guitar and piano dialogue, characterized by a diverse array of harmonic textures and colors. Utilizing instruments rooted in Western classical and folk traditions, the duo aims to represent the rich stylistic landscape of 20th and 21st- century music from the Americas.

Yolanda Tapia is a Mexican-born pianist renowned as a sought-after soloist and collaborator. With performances spanning Switzerland, Italy, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Canada, Mexico, and the USA. Yolanda's skill has garnered accolades from international piano, concerto, and chamber music competitions in Mexico, the US, Puerto Rico, and Canada. She has also contributed as a collaborative pianist at institutions like the Instituto Superior de Música de Veracruz, the University of Western Ontario, and most recently the University of Toronto.
Yolanda's teaching has extended to El sistema Toronto, the Community Music Schools of Toronto and has provided masterclasses at the University of Veracruz, FIM Loja in Ecuador, and Ontario's Cambrian College. Notable lecture recitals include CollabFest 2021, and Latin American Chamber Players. As a co-founder of Obsidiana Duo, she achieved recognition from the Puerto Rico Centre for Collaborative Piano and joined the artist roster of touring organizations Prairie Debut and Debut Atlantic. In 2023, she completed a performance residency with Holland America's Lincoln Center Stage piano quartet. Yolanda holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Western Ontario where she was mentored by Dr. John Hess and Mariana Chibotar.

Drawing inspiration from Bach to Coltrane and beyond, American Guitarist Leonard Ranallo seeks to blur the line between composer, performer, and improviser. Equally comfortable in the concert hall or a local club, Ranallo brings a unique vitality to every performance. His fluency in both classical and electric guitar has resulted in performances across the United States and Europe. As a performer, he’s been featured at festivals in Italy, Scotland, and the US, and has won prizes in the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra’s Young Musicians Competition, the Philadelphia Classical Guitar Society Competition, and the James Stroud Competition. In 2012, Ranallo made his professional orchestral debut as a concerto soloist performing with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. As a composer, he works to incorporate new and expressive sounds and techniques into the guitar vocabulary. Ranallo is also a strong promoter of new music, collaborating with composers from the US and UK on new works for classical and electric guitar. Ranallo completed his Master’s Degree at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland studying under Professor Allan Neave and Matthew McAllister, and his Bachelor of Music at Oberlin Conservatory under Stephen Aron. He is currently on faculty at the Peabody Conservatory Preparatory, and Swarthmore College, and maintains a private teaching studio in Philadelphia.