Maria Joao Pires

Born in 1944 in Lisbon, she gave her first concert when she was only four years old. She studied with Campos Coelho and Francine Benoît, and later in Germany with Rosl Schmid and Karl Engel. After winning first prize at the Brussels International Beethoven Competition in 1970, Maria João Pires gave concerts all over the world with the most prestigious orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, the London Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris and the Vienna Philharmonic.

In addition to her intense concert activity, she recorded for fifteen years for Erato and for twenty years exclusively for Deutsche Grammophon.

In 2002, she was awarded the prestigious IMC-Unesco International Music Prize.

Since 1970, she has dedicated herself to reflecting on the influence of art on life, communities and education and has worked to develop new ways of pedagogical theories within society. Over the past 10 years, she has held numerous workshops with students from all over the world and has taken her artistic philosophy and teaching to Japan, Brazil, Portugal, France and Switzerland.

Most recently, she started the ‘Partitura Project’ with a group of very talented young pianists: the aim of this project is to create a dynamic between artists of different generations and offer an alternative in a world too often focused on competitiveness.

Involved in the ‘Equinox project’, dedicated to the development of children’s choirs in disadvantaged areas, she has a large and varied discography as soloist, in chamber ensembles and with orchestra.

Recent recordings include Beethoven’s concertos 3 and 4 with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Daniel Harding for the Onyx label.

For his 70th birthday in 2014, Erato reissued many of his wonderful 1970s and 1980s recordings, and Deutsche Grammophon also released a box set of his solo recordings.