Pía Sebastiani

Pía Sebastiani (born February 27, 1925 in Buenos Aires ; † July 26, 2015 there ) was an Argentine pianist and music teacher.

Life

Sebastiani studied piano with A. Pinto, Jorge Fanelli and Jorge de Lalewitz , and composition with Gilardo Gilardi and Lamberto Baldi . She continued her training with Marguerite Long , Magda Tagliaferro and Adele Markus . In 1947 she received a scholarship from the Argentine government and studied at the Conservatoire de Paris with Darius Milhaud and Olivier Messiaen . In 1943 she composed a piano concerto, in 1945 a symphonic suite.

From 1958 to 1964 she was Argentina's cultural ambassador in Paris and Brussels. As a pianist, she has performed with almost all of the major Latin American and European orchestras and has given concerts in the Teatro Colón , Carnegie Hall , Salle Pleyel and Wigmore Hall, among others . As a chamber musician, she has worked with the Chicago Quartet, the Fine Arts Quartet and with violinists such as Dimitri Sitkovetzki , Carter Enyart , Paul Kling , Alberto Lysy , Fernando Hasaj , Luis Roggiero , Rafael Gíntoli and Pablo Saraví .

Sebastiani taught at the Conservatorio Juan José Castro, the Universidad del Litoral and, until 1991, at the Ball State University Indiana, after which she directed the Conservatorio Beethoven in Argentina and was president of the Fundación Beethoven, which is dedicated to promoting young talent.

On the occasion of her 80th birthday, the Orquesta Filarmónica de Buenos Aires gave a concert in the Teatro Colón in 2005 . In 2007 she was awarded the Premio a la Trayectoria by the Ministry of Culture. In 2008 she opened the summer concert cycle of the Orquesta Sinfónica Municipal de Mar del Plata under the direction of José Maria Ulla .

Web links

• Interview with Sebastiani from 2004
• Award as "Outstanding Personality of the City of Buenos Aires Culture"