Luis Parés

Infobox Person
name= Luis Parés


caption=
birth_date= September 16, 1980
birth_place= Caracas, Venezuela

Luis Parés (born Caracas, September 16, 1980) is a Venezuelan/Italian pianist. He is in much demand as a soloist and chamber musician having performed in many countries such as the USA, UK, Spain Venezuela and Italy. He has appeared with some of the most distinguished orchestras in Venezuela including the Caracas Symphony Orchestra and Maracaibo Symphony Orchestra. In the UK he recently performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London and the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester as well as giving numerous recitals over the past years at venues such as St James’s Piccadilly, St Martin-in-the-Fields and the Bolivar Hall.

Luis has won First Prize at the XI Ricard Viñes International Piano Competition (Lerida, Spain, 2005), First Prize at the Silvia Eisenstein National Piano Competition (Venezuela, 2001) a Special Mention at the Stefano Marizza Piano Competition (Italy, 1998) and many Royal College of Music prizes. After winning the RCM Concerto Competition he was invited to perform Beethoven First Piano Concerto with the RCM Sinfonietta conducted by Neil Thomson. He has also received important chamber music prizes such as Third Prize at the Maria Canals International Music Competition, Duo Sonatas Category (Barcelona, 2004), the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe Gwyneth George Prize (London, 2003) and First Prize at the XIV Paper de Musica Competition (Catalonia, 2003).

He started his musical studies with Juan Antúnez and also studied with Sergio Cimarosti, the Trio di Trieste and Igor Lavrov. He obtained a First Class BMus Degree and an MMus Degree in Advanced Performance with Distinction from the Royal College of Music and studied with Gordon Fergus-Thompson and Andrew Ball. He held RCM awards supported by an Elsa and Leonard Cross Memorial Award, Charles Napper and Lucy Ann Jones Awards and the Leverhulme Trust, a Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust Award and a Myra Hess Award administered by the Musicians Benevolent Fund. Luis currently holds the Mills Williams Junior Fellowship at the Royal College of Music for 2007/08.

Forthcoming engagements include Beethoven Fourth Concerto with Cambridge University Chamber Orchestra and Neil Thomson, numerous solo and chamber music recitals in the UK including a Bridgewater Hall recital in Manchester in March, and performances in Italy and Spain.

Reviews

No doubt the main draw for many of the Sinfonietta concert was the opportunity to hear the Venezuelan pianist Luis Parés. His account of Beethoven's First Concerto evinced an undoubted command of the keyboard, and his agility in the visceral passagework of the outer movements was matched by some exquisite playing in the Largo.

Richard Whitehouse

Pares is without doubt a pianist that commands all the affective range of his instrument and will soon give us much to talk about in world stages.

Daniel Fernández (El Nuevo Herald, Miami, 10 November 2005)

External links

* [http://www.luis-pares.com Luis' website]