Maria João Pires
Acting
Biography
Maria João Alexandre Barbosa Pires (born 23 July 1944) is a Portuguese classical pianist, widely regarded as one of the leading interpreters of the repertoire of the 18th and 19th centuries. Pires was born in Lisbon, Portugal, a posthumous daughter of João Baptista Pires and his wife Alzira dos Santos Alexandre Barbosa. She has three siblings: Hugo Alexandre Barbosa Pires, Maria Regina Alexandre Barbosa Pires and Maria Helena Alexandre Barbosa Pires. Her first recital was at the age of five, and at the age of seven she was already playing Mozart piano concertos publicly. Two years later she received Portugal's top prize for young musicians. In the following years, she studied with Campos Coelho at the Lisbon Conservatory, taking courses in composition, theory, and history of music. She continued her studies in Germany, first in the Musikakademie of Munich with Rosl Schmid and then in Hanover with Karl Engel. International fame came in 1970, when she won the Beethoven Bicentennial Competition in Brussels. Subsequently, she performed with major orchestras in Europe, America, Canada, Israel and Japan, interpreting works by Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, Schubert, Mozart, Brahms, Chopin and other classical and romantic composers. Her professionalism achieved worldwide recognition when 1998 documentary Attrazione d'amore was drawn to the attention of the press and went viral in 2013, and again in 2024. At the start of a lunchtime open rehearsal with Italian conductor Riccardo Chailly in Amsterdam, Pires realized that she had prepared for a different Mozart concerto, "Piano Concerto No. 23", instead of "Piano Concerto No. 20" which the orchestra had started playing. Quickly recovering, she played the correct concerto from memory without error. Pires performed at the BBC Proms in 2010. In an interview beforehand, she said that after 60 years of recitals and concerts she had cut back her performances but was non-committal about retirement. From 2012 to 2016, she was a Master in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Waterloo, Belgium, where she gave piano lessons and master classes to young talented pianists from all over the world. To foster young musicians, she launched the Partitura Project. In 2017, she announced her retirement from the stage and tours for 2018, but she continued giving concerts. On February 20, 2019, she was awarded with a Doctorate Honorary Degree by Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona. In 2023, she was given the Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance from the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University. Source: Article "Maria João Pires" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
Known For
Le Grand Échiquier is a French variety television program created and presented by Jacques Chancel. It aired at 8:30 pm on the first channel of the ORTF from January 12, 1972 to July 12, 1972, then on the second color channel of the ORTF from September 1972 to December 1974, and finally on Antenne 2 from January 1975 to December 21, 1989. The program returned to France 2 on December 20, 2018 and is hosted by Anne-Sophie Lapix.
Le Grand Échiquier
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Kulturzeit
A photographer, Isaac is asked by hotel owners to take portraits of their recently deceased daughter Angélica. When he looks at her through the lens of his camera, she appears to come back to life just for him. He instantly falls in love with her. From that moment, he will be haunted by Angélica day and night.
The Strange Case of Angelica
A well-bred, lovely, spiritual, sad young woman marries an attentive physician who loves her. She feels affection but no love. Soon after, without design, she falls in love with Pedro Abrunhosa, a poet and performance artist. He also loves her. She keeps her distance from him, confessing her love to a friend who is a nun and, later, to her husband. Hunger for her love and jealousy consume him; she attends him as he wastes away. With his death, she can marry and express her passion, but what she does and how she explains herself, particularly to her cloistered friend, is at the heart of the film. Glimpses of convent life and of Abrunhosa on stage give contrast and mute comment.
The Letter
A compilation of 30 French filmmakers, Alain Resnais and Jean Luc Godard among them, who use film to make a plea on behalf of a political prisoner. Jean Luc Godard and Anne Marie Mieville's film concerns the plight of Thomas Wanggai, West Papuan activist who has since died in prison. The short films were commissioned by Amnesty International.
Lest We Forget
In a mental institution the patients see themselves as people like Jesus, Lazarus, Martha, Mary, Adam, Eve, Sonia, Raskolnikov, Aliosha e Ivan Karamasov, a Philosopher, a Profet, Santa Teresa d'Avila, reciting the Divine Comedy.
The Divine Comedy
Shot over a two-year period observing Abbado: a) Rossini, Overture to 'll Barbiere di Siviglia' b) Schubert, Symphony no. 2 B-Major, D. 125 c) Arnold Schonberg, Kammersinfonie no. 1 E-Major op. 9 (Filmed in Venice, Gran Teatro La Fenice, in February 1995, Chamber Orchestra of Europe). a) Richard Strauss, Elektra (Deborah Polaski, Karita Mattila, Marjana Lipovsek, Ferrucio Furlanetto) b) Beethoven, Symphony no 6 F-Major, op. 68, 'Pastorale' (Filmed in the Festspielhaus Salzburg on the occasion of the Easter Festival, April 1995, Berlin Philharmonic). a) Beethoven, Concerto for piano and orchestra no. 3 C-MINOR, OP. 37 (Maria Joao Pires) b) Bruckner, Symphony no. 9 D-Minor (Filmed in Paris, Cite de la Musique, in August 1995, Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra).
Abbado: The Silence that Follows the Music
Attrazione d'Amore is a touching illustration of the unique relation that has developed between the Conductor Riccardo Chailly and his famous Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Voyage to Cythera navigates through wonderful musical quotes made of performances conducted by Berio, rehearsals, archival documents and interviews featuring Riccardo Chailly and Louis Andriessen.
Attrazione D'Amore/Voyage to Cythera
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Volta ao Mundo, Kamará
When the pianist Francesco Piemontesi hears an unreleased recording of the pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, it comes as a shock to him. This freedom of playing, these colors and nuances, this virtuosity, which is always presented with a smile, overwhelms him. He decides to explore what he believes he is hearing here: the alchemy of the piano.
The Alchemy of the Piano
Documentary about the life, convictions and career of Portugal's first and only female Prime Minister. Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo believed that "women can be a force for radical transformation of the institutionalised irrationality in which we live. The multifunctionality of their existence, the diversity of the planes on which they move, their daily lives give them a special capacity to find a new understanding and a new effectiveness for governance in the midst of complexity". Unlike many other women who have the same conviction, Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo turned her life into a praxis of her own belief.
Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo
'In 1980, the VPRO asked me to make a short film about the Russian pianist Youri Egorov. It was allowed to last ten minutes and was broadcast in the then Extra section. We were 25, both born in May 1954. It was my second short film, and I was very nervous. Youri didn't like cameras and even less interviews. But he agreed, "because you were even shyer than he was," his friend Jan Brouwer told me later. In the years that followed, we would meet up sometimes, and on one such occasion, during the last concert of Vladimir Horowitz, I promised him that later, when we would both be 50, I would make 'a real' film about a long and interesting life. Youri smiled politely. When he died in 1988, I said goodbye to him at his home, and Jan Brouwer reminded me of my promise. So I made it after all, a film about a short and intense life.' - Eline Flipse
Youri Egorov 1954 - 1988
Star pianists Martha Argerich and Maria João Pires join British conductor Daniel Harding and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva's Victoria Hall to perform two major works by Mozart and Mahler. Programme: W. A Mozart: Concerto for Two Pianos in E flat major Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 1 in D major
Martha Argerich & Maria João Pires Play Mozart Victoria Hall - Geneva
Maurice Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin W.A. Mozart: Piano Concerto No.20 Bela Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra Claude Debussy: Fêtes
Europakonzert 2003 from Lisbon
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Maria João Pires: Portrait of a Pianist
Inspired by his travels to the British Isles and full of the influence of the rolling Scottish landscape, both Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 ‘Scottish’ and his Overture: The Hebrides are amongst the composer’s most popular and admired works. The London Symphony Orchestra present us with inspiring performances of these works, as well as a performance of Schumann’s Piano Concerto, featuring the celebrated pianist, Maria João Pires.