Portuguese American Journal

Music: Maria João Pires nominee for the 2014 Grammy Awards – Los Angeles, USA

Portuguese piano virtuoso, Maria João Pires, was nominated for the 2014 56th Grammy Awards in the “Best Classical Instrumental Solo” category, for her interpretation of Schubert: Piano Sonatas D. 845 & D. 960, for the Deutsche Gramophon label.

This is the second time Pires is a nominee for a Grammy. She was first nominated in 2009. The awards ceremony will take place on January 26, 2014, in Los Angeles.

Other nominees under the same category are Bartók, Eötvös & Ligeti, Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Peter Eötvös (Naïve); Corigliano Conjuror, Evelyn Glennie and David Alan Miller (Naxos); The Edge of Light, Gloria Cheng (Harmonia Mundi); Lindberg’s Piano Concerto No. 2, Yefim Bronfman and Alan Gilbert (acapo Records); Salonen’s Violin Concerto and Nyx, Leila Josefowicz and Esa-Pekka Salonen (Deutsche Gramophon).

Maria João Pires was born in Lisbon, in 1944. She studied at the Lisbon Conservatory with Professor Campos Coelho and was a student of Francine Benoit. From 1953 until 1960, she continued her studies in Germany, first at the Munich Music Academy with Rosl Schmid, then in Hanover with Karl Engel.

Considered one of the greatest piano concert performers in the world, she gave her first recital at the age of five and made her first public performance at the age of seven with Mozart’s Piano Concertos. At the age of nine she received Portugal’s highest award for young musicians. She gained international fame in 1970, after winning the Beethoven Bicentennial Competition in Brussels.

Pires has performed in Europe, United States, Canada, Israel and Japan with major world orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, and the Wiener Philharmoniker.

A keen performer of chamber music, she has performed works by Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, Schubert, Mozart, Brahms and Chopin among other classical composers. In recent years she has been heard at all the major international festivals including the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Schubertiade, Tanglewood, Ravinia, Montpellier, Lucerne, Edinburgh and BBC Proms.

56th Annual Grammy Awards >> The complete classical music nominations list >> The complete Grammy’s list >>

Deutsche Gramophon >> Maria João Pires’ Bio >>

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