Maria Alice de Mendonça

Maria Alice de Mendonça is a pianist from Brazil. She won the Latin Grammy Award at the Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences.^[1] She has also performed at the Badia di Cava Music Festival and the International Music Festival of Villaller.

She is currently completing her Doctorate in Piano Performance at UCLA, Los Angeles.

References

1. ^ http://translate.google.com.au/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=http://www.pianoclass.com/sistema/cinves.pl%3Fi%3D1%26cmd%3Dmariaalicemendonca&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3DMaria%2BAlice%2Bde%2BMendon%25C3%25A7a%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

The Brazilian pianist Maria Alice de Mendonça is recognized internationally for her performance in contemporary music. Her interpretation, rich in creative personality and imaginative temperament, gave her an outstanding position in the Badia di Cava Music Festival (Italy-1997) and the International Music Festival of Villaller (Spain-1997). Because of her extraordinary reading skill, being able to play to an audience an unknown piece of music (reading it just hours before the performance) with confidence that few can achieve, in 1997 she has received an award by the Accademia Musicale “Jacopo Napoli” in Italy. Maria Alice de Mendonça was born in Brazil, where she began her studies with Linda Bustani, H.J. Koellreutter and Antônio Guerreiro. She has improved in High Pianistic Interpretation in Brazil and abroad with Luiz Carlos de Moura Castro, Heitor Alimonda, Gilberto Tinetti, Homero Magalhães, Antônio Guedes Barbosa (Brazil), Roberto Bravo (Chile), Vitaly Margulis, Robert Roux, Thomas Mastroianni and Boaz Sharon (USA), Sergei Dorenski and Maria Gambarian (Russia), Maria Jesus Crespo (Spain) and Carla Giudici (Italy).

She was awarded many prizes in Brazil, such as the First Prize in the Araçatuba National Competition and Second Prize in the Ribeirão Preto National Competition. These successes led her to be regularly invited to play in the whole country, thus launching her national career which has been developed internationally in concerts in Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, United States of America, Czech Republic and Russia.

Her success has been extended to the academic and pedagogic fields by achieving the highest grades in the Masters Degree in Piano Performance (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) and in the Post-Graduation in Musicology (Brazilian School of Music - Rio de Janeiro); and also when hired by the Brazilian Cultural Ministry to coordinate a project of “Basic Musicalization” for teachers of the district of Juiz de Fora (Minas Gerais).

By winning First Prize in a contest to the position of Piano Professor of the University of Rio de Janeiro - UNIRIO, she has conducted important work as a music researcher and an educator of a new generation of pianists since 1997.

Maria Alice received her Doctorate in Piano Performance at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) where she graduated with honors. During her Graduate Program, she has been awarded by the Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences Graduate Award, the Gluck Fellows Music Performance Program, the Mimi Alpert Feldman Scholarship Fund, the Evelyn & Mo Ostin Performing Arts Award, the Clifton Webb Fine Arts Scholarship and the most prestigious “Dissertation Year Scholarship”. Her dissertation (2008) “The Evolution and Transformation of Multi-dimensional Music in Contemporary Culture” addresses the contextual grounds for an emerging multi-dimensionality, one in which music leans toward the supra-rational consciousness upon which the spiritual qualities of music may best unfold. Using sources ranging from scientific theories (such as quantum physics, cosmology, and holography), contemporary musical examples, and recent studies of the connections between music and consciousness, this work reveals the ways in which multi-dimensional music is linked to the vibrational scientific reality and human consciousness, and how this unfolding evidence may transform the role of music, of the performer, and of the composer for the twenty-first century.

Frequently she has been presenting recitals on which music from the seventeenth century until today are performed in a multi-artistic way in order to reveal the historical unfolding of this multi-dimensional reality in the realm of music.

Maria Alice has launched two CDs in multi-dimensional music with her own compositions entitled “Metamorphosis” and “Transcendental” (2004). Her music is a vibrant and inspiring creation at the moment of the performance. Beyond any conception of composition, her music flows intuitively from the Silence within – the Source from which all forms manifest. With an international flavor, it combines classical music – minimalism, expressionism, impressionism, Ligeti’s fractal music – jazz, and the sacred flow of eastern music. Her music is an intuitive and wholesome creation.

“I do not create since Something is the creator. It is not something I plan how to do. I surrender and Something manifests. My heart caught the feeling; I observe and am conscious of the sensations in my body. Then, sounds manifest! I am free. There is no past or future. I am the present moment. Life, as whole, exists here, at this moment. No time. Everything manifests as vibrations. Vibrations build and create form, Art!”

External links

• Official Website
• Review

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