Luis Parés
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 US, 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.He is working closely with Natalia Luis-Bassa
