This story originally appeared in Fanfare Fall 2024.
Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires spent a productive week in residence at the Bienen School of Music in April. The internationally acclaimed artist provided multiple coaching sessions to piano students in her first campus visit as winner of the 2023 Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance.
Pires concluded her residency with a sold-out Galvin Recital Hall performance as part of the Skyline Piano Artist Series. Her program featured Mozart’s Piano Sonatas Nos. 11 and 13 and Debussy’s Suite bergamasque, Pour le piano, and (as an encore) Arabesque No. 1.
Established in 2005, the biennial Jean Gimbel Lane Prize honors pianists at the highest levels of international recognition. Previous winners include Richard Goode (2006), Stephen Hough (2008), Yefim Bronfman (2010), Murray Perahia (2012), Garrick Ohlsson (2014), Emanuel Ax (2016), Marc-André Hamelin (2018), and Sir András Schiff (2021).
