In this second volume of his survey of Cuban composers for the piano, Jose Raul Lopez presents the work of Nicolas Ruiz Espadero (1832-90), the most prominent name in Cuban music in the second half of the nineteenth century, both at home and abroad. Espadero's output ranges from delicate Chopinesque salon miniatures to barnstorming Lisztian operatic paraphrases that demand a fearsome virtuoso technique to do justice to their high-Romantic swagger. José R. López is Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Keyboard Studies Program at Florida International University in Miami. Dr. López is the President of the South Florida Chapter of the American Liszt Society, inaugurated in 2010 at FIU and was recently appointed Honorary Secretary of The Alkan Society, based in London. He has performed throughout the United States, Italy and Central and South America with orchestras, in solo recitals, and with chamber groups in summer festivals such as the Music Festival of the Hamptons in New York and the Killington Music Festival in Vermont. Active throughout South Florida, he has been a featured performer in the Florida International University's Music Festival; ISCM New Music Miami Festival, the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival, Coral Gables' Mainly Mozart Series, University of Miami's Miami Festival, and as founder and co-director of the Deering Estate at Cutler's "Chamber Concert Series," entering it's 12th year.