Mauricio Vallina is a Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

n pianist living in Brussels. He has been a top prize-winner of national and international piano competitions. His prizes include Valencia (1994) and Gernika (1996) international piano competitions, and he has also been awarded special prizes for the best performance of Cuban and Spanish Music.

Education and debut

After graduating in Havana, with a “Gold“ Diploma (1988), he achieved a solid formation at the Moscow “Tchaikovsky“ Conservatory (Master of Fine Arts in 1996), the Madrid Royal Conservatory and the Como International Piano Foundation. His teachers included Roberto Urbay

Roberto Urbay

Roberto Urbay is a Cuban concert pianist and piano professor.- Biography :Roberto Urbay studied at Escuela Nacional de Arte in Havana, Cuba where he was instructed by Margot Rojas Mendoza and Silvio Rodríguez Cárdenas. He was awarded a scholarship to study at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow...

, Henrietta Mirvis, Irina Plotnikova

Irina Plotnikova

Irina Plotnikova is a Russian pianist.Irina Plotnikova won the inaugural Sydney International Piano Competition , and presented the Opening Recital at the 1985 and 2000 competitions.She is now a professor at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory.-References:...

, Joaquin Soriano

Joaquín Soriano

Joaquín Soriano is a Spanish pianist.Trained in Valencia, he was a disciple of Vlado Perlemuter at the Conservatoire National de Paris...

, Alicia de Larrocha

Alicia de Larrocha

Alicia de Larrocha y de la Calle was a Spanish pianist from Catalonia. One of the great piano legends of the 20th century, Reuters called her "the greatest Spanish pianist in history", Time "one of the world's most outstanding pianists" and The Guardian "the leading Spanish pianist of her...

, Dimitri Bashkirov, Fou Tsong, Zenaida Manfugás

Zenaida Manfugas

Zenaida Manfugas is a Cuban American pianist. She is considered one of the best pianists of Cuba.- Biography :Born in 1932 in Guantanamo, Cuba, the family moved to Baracoa, where his father, Amando Gonzalez Veranés, was appointed municipal judge and his mother opened a music school affiliated...

 and Martha Argerich

Martha Argerich

Martha Argerich is an Argentine pianist.-Early life:Argerich was born in Buenos Aires and started playing the piano at age three...

.
Vallina's debut performance was at the Zurich Tonhalle in 1998.

Performances

He performed at many of the great international festivals, including “La Roque d‘Anthèron“, Schleswig-Holstein music festival, Radio France-Montpellier festival, “Beppu, Argerich‘s meeting point“, Sintra festival, Lugano festival. Many of his concerts have been broadcast on radio or television.

He has performed with leading orchestras. In chamber music he has performed with Polina Leschenko,Gabriela Montero,Nelson Goerner,KarinLechner,Alexander Mogilevsky,Evgeny Brahman,Don-Hyek Lim,Pia Sebastiani,Mirabela Dina,Geza Hosszu-Legocky,Mark Drobinsky,Renaud Capuçon and Gautier Capuçon. He has been featured in several documentary films such as “Evening Talks“, “Nelson Freire“- a Brazilian production. As partner with Martha Argerich, he has performed in many countries; some of the performances are released, “Live from Lugano Festival“ 2005, 2007 and 2009 with EMI.

Recordings

In 2001, Vallina recorded his first CD with EMI CLASSICS INTERNATIONAL. This EMI Abbey Road recording received a “CHOC“ in the magazine “Le Monde de la Musique“ and brought him great acclaim in Vienna, London and Paris.

Vallina was chosen “The Rurh Piano Festival Stipend of the year 2008“. As part of this promotional project, his solo recital was recorded and released within the phonographic magazine FonoForum, along with the premier of one of his own works: L'Enigma.

Repertoire and compositions

Vallina performs a broad repertoire from Bach to contemporary works and new compositions, some of them dedicated to him. The new composition First concerto for Piano and Orchestra by the Colombian composer Arturo Cuellar, premièred at the Colón Theater

Colón Theater

To Redirect to homonymous theatre in Bogotá see Teatro de Cristobal ColónThe Teatro Colón is the main opera house in Buenos Aires, Argentina, acoustically considered to be amongst the five best concert venues in the world.The present Colón replaced an original theatre which opened in 1857...

 of Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

 in 2001. The Sonata en Mi bemol of the same composer, premièred at the Zürich Tonhalle in 2002. Vallina opened Martha Argerich Project_Lugano Festival 2007, performing the Lutoslawsky_Paganini Variations with the “Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana“. He performed Mac Dowell's second piano concerto with the “Orchestre Philarmonique de Liège“, at the opening concert of the “Festival Amériques“ (2008).

During the Martha Argerich Project_Lugano Festival 2009 he performed with the legendary pianist a memorable version of Liszt_Don Juan. In 2010 he mainly focused on Chopin and Schumann. He is also Executive Professor at the first online musical academy of the world: The Lions-Club "Mozart" Academy of Vienna.

External links

Official website of Cuban pianist Mauricio Vallina - mauriciovallina.net

Radiotelevisione Svizzera di lingua Italiana