Luísa Tender in the Piano Cycle at the Palaces of Sintra

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

• Sonata in B flat Major, KV. 333 (I. Allegro; II. Andante Cantabile; III. Allegro Grazioso)

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

• Italienisches Konzert, BWV 971 (I. [without tempo designation]; II. Andante; III. Presto)

INTERMISSION

Frédéric Chopin (1811-1849)

(Four) Balads

• Balad n.º 1, em G minor, Op. 23
• Balad n.º 2, em F Major, Op. 38
• Balad n.º 3, em A flat Major, Op.47
• Balad n.º 4, F minor, Op. 52

Luísa Tender was born in Porto in 1977. There, she studied piano with Teresa Monteiro, Anne-Marie Mennet, Pedro Burmester and Helena Sá e Costa. Between 1997 and 2000, she studied under Vitalij Margulis in Los Angeles; and later under Irina Zaritskaya, at the Royal College of Music in London, where she gained a master’s degree in Music. She was also a student of Marian Rybicki and received the Diplôme Supérieur d’Exécution in piano at the École Normale de Musique in Paris. She has a PhD in Musical Sciences, specialising in Music Education and Psychology, from the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (NOVA FCSG, 2021).

Her first CD (Bach and Forward, author's edition, London 2009), which includes works by J. S. Bach, F. Schubert and C. Debussy, was ‘Choice of the Month’ in the British magazine Classical Music. Her second discographic work, Página Esquecida, a double album with Portuguese works for cello and piano with Bruno Borralhinho (Dreyer & Gaido, Berlin, 2009), was praised in several music publications (Fanfare, Strings Magazine, Das Orchester, among others). She recorded the complete sonatas for piano by J. D. Bomtempo (Naxos Grand Piano, 2019), with coverage in specialised press (Ritmo, Music Web International, Stretto, Musikalifeiten).

The Spanish magazine Ritmo wrote a feature on her, entitled ‘Tiempo para Bontempo – Luísa Tender’. With co-author Manuel Pedro Ferreira, Luísa also published the book O pescador de sons (The Fisherman of Dreams, Lisbon, CESEM, 2019), the German translation of which (Der Klangfischer) was published recently. Describing one of her concerts, the London Independent called her ‘a natural Beethovenian.’

She spent two academic years as guest lecturer at the Escola Superior de Música e Artes do Espectáculo do Instituto Politécnico in Porto (ESMAE). She lives in Lisbon and is Professor of Piano at the Escola Superior de Artes Aplicadas do Instituto Politécnico in Castelo Branco (ESART), where she was coordinator of the master’s course in Music Education and an active member of the Technical Scientific Board.  She is president of the general assembly of EPTA-Portugal (European Piano Teachers Association); and a researcher at CESEM (NOVA), in the area of Education and Human Development.

During her student years, she received scholarships from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Royal College of Music.