Maria João Alexandre Barbosa Pires (Portuguese: [mɐˈɾiɐ ʒwɐ̃ũ̯ ˈpiɾɨʃ]; born 23 July 1944) is a classical pianist.

Pires was born in Lisbon, Portugal. 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 Schmidt 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 a film (from 1999) was drawn to the attention of the press and went viral in 2013. At the start of a lunchtime concert in Amsterdam, she realised that she had rehearsed for a different Mozart concerto from the one the orchestra had started playing; quickly recovering, she played the concerto from memory.

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.

Here's one of her greatest recordings

 

from wiki and youtube

 

 

 

 

 

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