Marta Menezes in the Piano Cycle at the Palaces of Sintra

Antonio Soler (1729-1783)

• Sonata in C minor, R. 103

Carlos Seixas (1704-1742)

• Sonata nº 10 in C Major (I. Allegro; II. [Tempo di Minuetto])

Artur Santos (1914-1987)

• Sonata in E flat Major (I. Allegro con brio; II. Lento e con dolore; III. Scherzo: Allegro - over the cuckoo's song; IV. Allegro vivace)

José Viana da Mota (1868-1948)

• Ballad on two Portuguese melodies, op. 16

INTERMISSION

Federico Mompou (1893-1987)

• Cançons i Danses nº 1
• Cançons i Danses nº 7

Enrique Granados (1867-1916)

• Los requiebros (de Goyescas)
• Quejas o la maja y el ruiseñor (de Goyescas)
• El Pelele

Marta Menezes is one of the most renowned Portuguese pianists of her generation. Her recitals explore the dialogue between tradition and originality in a way that brings to the fore the nuance, subtlety and musical sensitivity characteristic of her performance. Her carefully-selected repertoire, which reveals an affinity with Beethoven, ranges from the baroque to the present day, and frequently includes works by lesser-known composers, many of them Portuguese.

Highlights among her recent collaborations include concerts with Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Spain, Valencia Orchestra, Porto Symphony Orchestra – Casa da Música, Beiras Philharmonic Orchestra, Lisbon Sinfonietta Orchestra and Orquestra Sem Fronteiras (Orchestra Without Borders). She has worked with conductors such as Pedro Neves, Nuno Coelho, Jaime Martín, Karel Mark Chichon, Pedro Amaral, Jan Wierzba, Rui Pinheiro and Martim Sousa Tavares. She has performed in auditoriums and festivals all around the world, including the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Beijing), St.  Martin-in-the-Fields (London), Festiwal Urodzinowy Fryderyka Chopina (Warsaw), Palau de les Arts Auditorium (Valencia) and the Centro Cultural de Belém (Lisbon).

Marta plays an active role in promoting Portuguese music, programming this repertoire in her concerts and commissioning and premièring works by contemporary composers. Among her recent projects, it is worth mentioning 5 Encores para Beethoven (2020), in which she presented the composer’s five Concertos for Piano and gave the first ever performance of five encores to the concertos, commissioned to composers of her generation. Last season, she performed the world première of Tiago Derriça’s Concerto para Piano, which he dedicated to her.

Marta completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in piano at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa with Miguel Henriques, as well as working with Jorge Moyano, finishing her master’s with the highest distinction. She continued her studies in London, at the Royal College of Music, with Andrew Ball and Dmitri Alexeev, and later in the United States, with Arnaldo Cohen. She has a PhD from the University of Indiana – Jacobs School of Music.

Throughout her career, she has won various prizes and awards, of which it is worth mentioning first place in the Royal College of Music’s Beethoven Competition and in the Nice Côte D'Azur International Piano Competition, the ‘Silver Medal for Merit and Distinction’ for her career as a pianist, awarded by the Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa, and the Silver Medal at the Global Music Awards (United States) for her CD featuring works by Beethoven and Lopes-Graça, in the categories of Classical Piano and Emerging Artist.

Marta Menezes currently lives in Madrid.