Gabriela Montero

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Gabriela Montero on the piano

Gabriela Montero (born May 10, 1970 in Caracas , Venezuela ) is a Venezuelan pianist and composer .

Life

She made her first public appearance at the age of five. She made her concert debut at the age of eight with the Orquesta Sinfónica de la Juventud Venezolana Simón Bolívar under José Antonio Abreu and received a government scholarship to study in the USA . At the age of twelve she won the Baldwin Competition and the AMSA Young Artist International Piano Competition with the performance of Tchaikovsky's 1st Piano Concerto with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. She continued her studies with Lyl Tiempo , Andrez Esterhazy and Professor Hamish Milne at the Royal Academy of Musicin London. She received international attention for the first time with third place at the 13th International Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1995.

Gabriela Montero is married and has two daughters. She lived near Boston for a long time , then in Los Angeles . Currently (2018) she lives with her family in Barcelona.

Gabriela Montero is also politically active and uses her celebrities to draw attention to the grievances and unrest in her home country Venezuela. She is also influenced by social and political issues in her compositions, for example her composition "Ex Patria" is dedicated to her home country.

improvisation

She possesses the ability, which is rare among classical pianists, to improvise on any topic posed by the audience and thus build a bridge to jazz and other music. This gift of improvisation and inspiration , as also possessed by Friedrich Gulda , now occupies a large space in her concerts and recordings. The pianist Martha Argerich encouraged her to bring her improvisations into concert life. Gabriela Montero could be heard along with Martha Argerich, Paul Gulda and Rico Gulda at the Gulda memorial concert Martha Argerich meets Friedrich Gulda on the occasion of his 75th birthday on July 19, 2005 in the Bavarian State Opera in Munich .

When asked how she managed the improvisations, she said: “I don't actually do anything. There is something that just flows through me ”.

Gabriela Montero has already performed in many concert halls for piano recitals, including a .: Wigmore Hall London, Kennedy Center Washington DC, National Arts Center Ottawa, Orchard Hall Tokyo, Teatro Colón Buenos Aires, Wiener Konzerthaus , Herkulessaal Munich, Musikhalle Hamburg , Berlin Konzerthaus, Tonhalle Düsseldorf . In 2007 she played in the Cologne Philharmonic as part of the Cologne Music Triennale , the theme of which was 'improvisation'. Invited her sang the audience to Bläck Fööss -Klassiker "M'r losse d'r Dom en Kölle" before; Montero improvised about it.

On January 20, 2009, at the inauguration of Barack Obama, she played the piano part in the quartet Air and Simple Gifts , which John Williams had composed especially for the occasion. Her partners were Anthony McGill (clarinet), Itzhak Perlman (violin) and Yo-Yo Ma (violoncello). Due to the weather, one image was used that day.

Commitment and distinction

Montero works as an ambassador for Amnesty International , for her home country and for young artists from Venezuela.

On March 18, 2018 she received the music prize of the “Heidelberger Frühling” 2018. The Heidelberger Frühling also explicitly honors her as a “political personality who campaigns for human rights in her home country Venezuela and often publicly points out the scandalous conditions there ".

On December 4, 2018 she was awarded the 4th International Beethoven Prize for Human Rights, Peace, Freedom, Poverty Reduction and Inclusion from the Beethoven Academy at a gala concert in the presence of her husband "as an honor for her active social and political commitment". She used the podium for a statement, in which she again pointed out the profound grievances that people in her home country suffer from. She criticized and charged that Venezuela, once a prosperous democratic country, is now a dictatorship marked by corruption and violence. And she warned against the "marketing-friendly" lie that music heals everything with which she referred to the music project El Sistema , which was sponsored by the regime . She received standing applause from the audience for her statement.

Quote

“ I have seldom met a talent like Gabriela. "

- Martha Argerich on Montero

“ Your commitment to the people in Venezuela is impressive and worth emulating. "

- Wolfgang Niedecken in the preface to the 4th International Beethoven Prize

composition

  • 2011: ExPatria for piano and orchestra
  • 2016: Piano Concerto No. 1 Latin Concerto

Discography

year title Artist Label
2010 Solatino Gabriela Montero EMI Classics
2008 Rhapsody - Rachmaninov, Prokofiev Cello Sonatas Gautier Capuçon and Gabriela Montero Virgin Classics
2007 Baroque Gabriela Montero EMI Classics
2007 Chopin: Piano Works Gabriela Montero Palexa
2006 Bach and Beyond Gabriela Montero EMI Classics
2006 Gabriela Montero in Concert a Montreal Gabriela Montero Palexa
2005 Piano recital Gabriela Montero EMI Classics

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c https://www.welt.de/kultur/article1740817/Das-fantastische-Talent-der-Pianistin.html
  2. ↑ Mirko Weber Do you hear the shots? in: Die Zeit , No. 24 of June 11, 2015
  3. ↑ biography, last sentence
  4. ↑ Improvisation on "M'r losse d'r Dom en Kölle"
  5. ↑ BBC. Quartet pre-recorded Obama music. January 23, 2009
  6. ↑ Heidelberg Spring 2018
  7. ↑ Beethoven Academy
  8. ↑ Interview on the Beethoven Prize 2018
  9. ↑ Bernhard Hartmann Silence is not an option , General-Anzeiger December 6, 2018 p. 11
  10. ↑ "Make a wish!" or the art of the flash of inspiration . In Das Magazin (Kölner Philharmonie), March April 2009, pp. 60-61 ( online copy  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove it this note .; PDF; 3.6 MB)@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / mwk-koeln.de  
  11. ↑ Mistress of the situation in: FAZ of October 28, 2011, page 54
  12. ↑ Before the world premiere: Gabriela Montero's Latin Concerto in 'LVZ'
personal data
SURNAME Montero, Gabriela
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Venezuelan concert pianist
DATE OF BIRTH May 10, 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Caracas , Venezuela