Maria João Pires

(PRT)

‘Piano poetess’ Maria João Pires is widely regarded as the world’s foremost interpreter of Mozart and Beethoven. Her performances are sophisticated and spiritual. She is often referred to as a musical medium. She herself explains it best: “Music is not just a human creation. There is more to it. A composer has forces within him that we cannot explain. But he also has them from somewhere, somewhere from all over the world, from the universe. As an artist, I am simply a channel to transmit the music.”

MARIA JOÃO PIRES - Chopin "Nocturne Op 9 no1" live @ JARDIN MUSICAL 🌱

Maria Joao Pires - expecting another Mozart concerto during a lunchconcert

Biography

Born in 1944 in Lisbon, Maria João Pires gave her first public performance at the age of 4 and began her studies of music and piano with Campos Coelho and Francine Benoît, continuing later in Germany, with Rosl Schmid and Karl Engel. In addition to her concerts, she has made recordings for Erato for fifteen years and Deutsche Grammophon for twenty years.

Since the 1970s, she has devoted herself to reflecting the influence of art in life, community and education, trying to discover new ways of establishing this way of thinking in society. She has searched for new ways which, respecting the development of individuals and cultures, encourage the sharing of ideas.

In 1999, she created the Belgais Centre for the Study of the Arts in Portugal. Maria João Pires regularly offers interdisciplinary workshops for professional musicians and music lovers. In the Belgais concert hall concerts and recordings regularly take place.

In 2012, in Belgium, she initiated two complementary projects; the Partitura Choirs, a project which creates and develops choirs for children from disadvantaged backgrounds as in Belgium the „Hesperos Choir, and the Partitura Workshops. All of the Partitura projects have the aim to create an altruistic dynamic between artists of different generations by proposing an alternative in a world too often focused on competitiveness. This philosophy is being spread worldwide at Partitura projects and workshops.