Lucía Caruso
“My highest satisfaction is the union of
performance and creation. For me,
one of the strongest feelings of success is when I write a line of music, play
it, and love it”. – Lucía Caruso
Pianist
and composer Lucía Caruso was born in Mendoza, Argentina in 1980.
A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, she has received important
awards in several international piano competitions.
At age fourteen she obtained the prize for the ‘Best Foreign Pianist’
at the Claudio Arrau International Piano Competition in Chile in 1994, and
‘Second Honorable Mention’ at the same competition in 1996. At seventeen she
obtained the ‘First Honorable Mention’ at the Giomar Novaes International
Piano Competition in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1997. She was the First Prize winner
of the National University of Cuyo Symphony Orchestra Competition, Argentina, in
1998, giving her the opportunity to perform as a soloist with that orchestra in
1999. Of that concert a reviewer
wrote: “Pianist Lucía Caruso displayed such technical mastery and emotional
tension that her talent marked the highest point of the [Cuyo Symphony
Orchestra’s youth] season. Not always is a performer able to involve the
audience with the absolute magic of music, a fact which this young performer did
indeed achieve […]”.…. Diario Los Andes, Mendoza, Argentina.
Ms.
Caruso started her piano and music studies in 1991 with professor Gustavo Gatica
in her hometown of Mendoza, Argentina. She
attended one year at the Music School of the National University of Cuyo in
Argentina in 1998. That same year,
after performing in a public master class at the San Martín National Theatre in
Tucumán, Argentina, she won a scholarship to study piano with Dr. Ana Maria
Trenchi Bottazzi in New York City from 1999 to 2000. In the year 2000 she was accepted at the prestigious
Manhattan School of Music in New York City.
She graduated from that institution with a Bachelor’s Degree in
classical piano under the tutelage of Dr. Donn-Alexandre Feder in May 2004
Since she
was eleven Ms. Caruso has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in several
cities of Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Costa Rica, France, England, Italy and the
United States. In 1999 and 2000 she
gave two performances at Steinway Hall, and two performances at Weill Recital
Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City. She played a solo recital at the
Sant’Antonio dei Portoghesi Church in Rome in July 2003 as part of the
‘Circolo d’incontro - Festa Europea della Musica’ (European Festival of
Music). She also performed in 1999
as a soloist with the National Youth Symphony Orchestra at the National Theatre
of San José in Costa Rica. Ms.
Caruso has participated in several master classes with important international
artists. In Mendoza, Argentina, she
attended a master class on the Classical sonata with Alejandro Geberobich from
Austria in 1996. In two consecutive
years, 2002 and 2003, she was one of only four pianists from Europe and the
United States that were selected to participate with a scholarship at the
International Musike Academy Festival in Durham, England.
There she performed and had master classes with Jean-Bernard Pommier and
had performances of some of her compositions.
She also obtained another scholarship to study piano with Jean-Bernard
Pommier in France in July 2003.
At
the age of twelve, Ms. Caruso started composing her first pieces and made the
decision that music was going to be her life.
Since 2001 she has been studying composition in New York City with
Professor Pedro Henriques da Silva. She
also attended composition classes at the Manhattan School of Music with
Professor Ludmila Ulehla. Her
pieces have been performed in Argentina, Italy, France, England and the United
States. She gave an entire recital
of her compositions and recorded a CD at the Manhattan School of Music in 2003.
In the following year an orchestral piece of hers was performed and
recorded by the Manhattan School of Music Orchestra.
Ms.
Caruso and her composition professor, Pedro Henriques da Silva, have recently
formed the highly original ‘Caruso-da Silva Duo’ in which she plays piano
and harpsichord and he plays sitar, mandolin, Portuguese guitar and classical
guitar. They are exploring and
creating new sounds by mixing Western and non-Western music in styles that range
from Renaissance to Contemporary, North Indian to Flamenco, and Tango to Bossa
Nova. Most of the music they
perform is improvisational, blending different cultures and traditions in a
seamless and cohesive whole. As a
duo, they have performed in Wolcott (Colorado), New York City, and Swan Lake
(New York). In November 2004 they
had concerts scheduled in Rome, Lisbon and New York.
They are also recording a CD of original compositions and improvisations.
Teaching is another of Lucía
Caruso’s passions. She is a
specialist in teaching young musicians and is presently writing her own piano
method for young children. She was
invited to give a lecture about ‘The Music from the Renaissance’ for a
seminar of New York University Professor, Antonio Rutigliano,
and his group of students in September 2000.
A Renaissance consort from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New
York City performed while Ms. Caruso gave the lecture.
Always in
search of ways in which her creativity may run free, at the age of ten, she
wrote a theatre play that was performed at her school.
Also, at the age of twelve, she acted and wrote the screenplay and music
for a modest movie of her own creation that her father directed.
Ms. Caruso is fluent in Spanish, French and English, and she is able to
speak and write in Russian, Italian and Portuguese.