Alba Ventura
Born in Barcelona, Alba Ventura made her debut as a concert soloist at the age of thirteen performing Mozart's piano concerto K271 with the Cadaques Orchestra under Sir Neville Marriner, in San Sebastian and at the Auditorio Nacional de Madrid. Since then her career as international soloist has brought her to the grandest international stages such as the Wigmore Hall, the Barbican and St Martin-in-the-Fields in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Cité de la Musique in Paris, the Laeiszehalle in Hamburg, the Bozar in Brussels, the Konserthuset in Stockholm and the Svetlanovsky Hall in Moscow, as well as the most important Spanish concert halls, the Auditorio Mario Laserna in Bogotá and the Auckland Town Hall, New Zealand. She has collaborated with conductors such as Giovanni Antonini, Howard Griffiths, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Christopher Hogwood, Salvador Mas, Eiji Oue, Antoni Ros Marbà and Tamas Vásary, and she has performed with prestigious orchestras and chamber ensembles such as the Phliharmonia Orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra, the Hungarian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Czech National Symphonic Orchestra, as well as the main Spanish orchestras, the Brodsky, Takacs and Casals quartets and performers such as Boris Belkin and Gordan Nikolic.
She studied with Carlota Garriga at the Marshall Academy, where she also received masterclasses from Alicia de Larrocha. At the age of eleven she received a scholarship to study with Dimitri Bashkirov at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofia. Following an audition with Vladimir Ashkenazy in Berlin, she was offered his tutorship and he arranged for her to study with Irina Zaritskaya at the Purcell School in London and later at the Royal College of Music. She received further masterclasses from Nikita Magalof, Maria Joao Pires and Radu Lupu. In 1998 Alba won the international award from the Young Concert Artist Trust (YCAT).
In the 2009-10 season she was selected as the only piano soloist for the programme ¨Rising Stars´ promoted by ECHO (European Community Halls Association). Recently she has been awarded the IMPULSA prize by the Fundación Principe de Girona. Her most recent recording is a programme of Rachmaninoff's work, which has been extremely well received. Alba Ventura has just completed recording her new disc - this time recording music by Albéniz, performed on the composer's own piano which is kept at the “Museu de la Música” in Barcelona.
Alba Ventura combines her career as a concert soloist with her teaching activity. Alba is a teacher at the Conservatorio Superior de Música del Liceo and collaborates with the famous Brazilian pianist Luiz de Moura in the Liceo's Summer School.