Gabriela Montero (born May 10, 1970, Caracas) is a Venezuelan pianist.
Gabriela Montero’s visionary interpretations and unique improvisational gifts have won her a quickly expanding audience and devoted following around the world. Born in Caracas Venezuela, Gabriela gave her first public performance at the age of five. Aged eight she made her concerto debut with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra conducted by Jose Antonio Abreu and was granted a scholarship from the Venezuelan Government to study in the USA.
From her first contact with a piano, Gabriela has always improvised and she decided to make it public at the behest of Martha Argerich who told her not to be afraid whether people would find it improper or not.
In both recital and after performing a concerto, Gabriela often invites her audience to participate in asking for a melody for improvisations. They ask for themes from a Mozart Symphony to regional folk tunes, and at times, even the orchestra have a chance to suggest a theme if they so wish. “When improvising,” Gabriela says, “I connect to my audience in a completely unique way – and they connect with me. Because improvisation is such a huge part of who I am, it is the most natural and spontaneous way I can express myself. I have been improvising since my hands first touched the keyboard, but for many years I kept this aspect of my playing secret. Then Martha Argerich overheard me improvising one day and was ecstatic. In fact, it was Martha who persuaded me that it was possible to combine my career as a serious ‘classical’ artist with the side of me that is rather unique.”
Gabriela’s future and recent engagements include her acclaimed performances with the New York Philharmonic debut with Lorin Maazel, LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, Rotterdam Philharmonisch Orkest at De Doelan and NDR Hannover at the Bergen Festival In recital, her engagements include the Edinburgh Festival, Vienna Konzerthaus, Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Koln Philharmonie, Tonhalle Dusseldorf, Konzerthaus Berlin, Alte Sendersaal Frankfurt, Kennedy Centre Washington DC, and at the ‘Progetto Martha Argerich’ Festival in Lugano where she is invited annually.
Gabriela has a long-established duo partnership with the French cellist Gautier Capucon and they appeared at the 2009 Salzburg Festival and toured Germany in 2009 including engagements in Munich, Bonn, Hamburg, Dortmund and Heidelberg in April 2009 as well as the Theatre du Chatelet, Paris, in May 2009. Future duo engagements in 2010 include the Vienna Konzerthaus, Braunschweig Festival, Beethoven Boon Festival and Opera de Lille.
Gabriela’s first EMI/Angel CD consisted of one disc of music by Rachmaninov, Chopin and Liszt and a second of her deeply felt and technically brilliant improvisations. Standing alongside inspired performances of core repertoire, improvisations plays as important a part in Gabriela’s life as it did for Bach and Mozart and, to show the link, her EMI CD Bach and Beyond is a complete disc of improvisations on themes by Bach which topped the charts for several months. In February 2008 her follow up EMI recording of improvisations Baroque, was released with great critical acclaim receiving 5 star reviews from BBC Music Magazine and Classic FM.
Gabriela’s Bach and Beyond was given the “Choc de la musique de l’année” award in 2006 from The French Magazine Le Monde de la Musique. She rounded off this triumphant year with the Keyboard Instrumentalist of the Year at the ECHO Preis Award in Munich and in 2007, ECHO Pries awarded her the Klassik-ohne-Grenzen Award for her Bach and Beyond CD. In 2009, her latest album Baroque was nominated for a Grammy Award in two categories (Best Crossover Category and Best Producer Category). She has also been profiled on CBS’s 60 Minutes.
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