About Paulo Álvares

The pianist Paulo Álvares (born 1960 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil) studied piano with Caio Pagano at the University of São Paulo (as well as chamber music and new music), with Steven de Groote in Texas and with Aloys Kontarsky in Cologne on a DAAD scholarship.

In 1990 he won the Kranichstein Music Award at the Darmstadt Summer Courses, in 1991 the first prize of the competition "Musik kreativ". In the following years he did research on the relationship between piano and live electronics at the IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) in Paris.

Performing as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the world, Álvares dedicates himself to contemporary music, improvisation, classical music and 20th-century repertoire. He has worked with the WDR Symphony Orchestra, the ensemble Noamnesia in Chicago and Het Spectral Ensemble in Ghent, among others. He is a welcome guest at major festivals such as Wien Modern, Triennale Köln, Wittener Tage für Neue Musik, Musica Straßburg, and Musica Nova São Paulo. Furthermore, Álvares has worked closely together with major composers and conductors (such as Helmut Lachenmann, Mauricio Kagel, Luciano Berio, Tristan Murail, Gerhard Stäbler, Jonathan Harvey, Dieter Schnabel, Hans Zender, and Peter Eötvös). Among his numerous CD releases is the complete oeuvre for piano by Mauricio Kagel. Since 1997 he has been a lecturer of improvisation and piano at the Cologne Musikhochschule.

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