Dra. Cristina Capparelli Gerling

A leading figure in the musical circles of her native Brazil, pianist and scholar Cristina Capparelli Gerling appears frequently as soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, guest teacher, and lecturer in the United States, Canada, England, Germany, France, and Portugal.

A prizewinner of the Anne and Aaron Richmond Piano Competition, Cristina made her home in Boston for several years, where she was a founding member of the Longyear Chamber Music Series. As pianist with Trio Panamericano she toured throughout Brazil and the northeastern United States to critical acclaim. Her performances have taken her to prominent venues across the world, including Boston’s Jordan Hall and London´s Wigmore Hall.

Cristina has taught at the New England Conservatory Preparatory Division, the Boston University School of the Arts, the Rivers School of Weston, MA, and has been a frequent guest performer and master teacher at highly distinguished American Music Schools. In Brazil, Dr. Gerling was instrumental in establishing the highly regarded Graduate Music Program at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, in Porto Alegre, where she is Professor of Music. Her former students have gone on to study and hold faculty positions in renowned music schools throughout North and South America.

Thrice a recipient of Fulbright Grants for study in the United States, she holds a master’s degree with honors from the New England Conservatory where she studied with Victor Rosenbaum-piano; Benjamin Zander and Eric Rosenblith-chamber music, and Ernst Oster- Schenkerian analysis. She also holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from the Boston University School of the Arts where she studied with Bela Nagy-piano and Joyce Mekeel- musical analysis.

Committed to playing all styles of piano music, Dr. Gerling has recorded the solo piano music of Bruno Kiefer, a southern Brazilian composer, and a CD of Latin American piano music including music of Villa-Lobos and Camargo Guarnieri. Her ongoing research project on Latin American piano music is attracting the attention of pianists and scholars worldwide. She has recorded the complete works of Camargo Guarnieri as well as a collection of cello pieces by Brazilian composers with cellist Tania Lisboa for the Meridian label. She also recorded a Cd of Brazilian Piano Music by two composers from Salvador, Bahia (2011) and contributes with two Sonatinas and the formidable Piano Sonata by Camargo Guarnieri in a CD produced with her fellow teachers at UFRGS.

Having published regularly and extensively on issues closely related to her research on the Latin American piano repertoire as well as on effective instrumental practice, musical memorization, projection of expressivity in performance and anxiety of musical performance, in 2021 Dr. Gerling´s work of a lifetime was acknowledged, and she received a prize from the Brazilian Association for Music Theory and Analysis- TeMA.  Currently she is Guest Co-Editor of Frontiers on Psychology-Performance Science.