Biography

Brazilian pianist and educator Maria-Helena Ferraz, D.M.A., enjoys a career encompassing a broad spectrum of piano solo, chamber music and solo with orchestra performances. She has performed in Brazil, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Colombia and the USA. A versatile pianist with a continuing commitment to new music, Dr. Ferraz has performed various premières, internationally. For her Doctoral Qualifying Recital, she performed the World Première of "Fantasia Ecológica" by Almeida Prado, one of the most prominent Brazilian contemporary composers. "Fantasia Ecológica" was dedicated to Maria Helena Ferraz, after the success of her première of Almeida Prado's piano Concerto "Fribourgeois" with the Fribourg Orchestra, in Switzerland. She has had other compositions dedicated to her by various composers including Almeida Prado (Brazil), Ernst Mahle (Brazil), and Christopher Voisé (Poland).

Dr. Ferraz's appearances as a soloist with orchestras include the Orchestre Jeunes de Fribourg, in Switzerland, the São Paulo State Symphony, one of the major Orchestras in Brazil, the Hartt Symphony Orchestra in the USA, and the EAFIT Symphony Orchestra in Colombia, among others. Her performances with the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra were broadcast live by the Rádio Cultura São Paulo. Maria-Helena Ferraz has collaborated with the finest conductors such as Théophanis Kapsopoulos (Switzerland), Arthur Winograd (USA, former Hartford Symphony Artistic Director and cellist founder of the Juilliard String Quartet), Cecilia Espinosa (Colombia), Diogo Pacheco and Ernst Mahle (Brazil), among others.

Chamber music has formed an important part of Dr. Ferraz’s career. She has collaborated with numerous international finest instrumentalists including Elisa Fukuda, Luis Carlos Justi, Martin Tuksa (Brazil), Nicholas Zumbro, Bridget de Moura Castro, Gretchen Miller, Michael Grossman, Zoran Stilin, Vivian Podgainy  (USA), and Jarmila Janecek (Switzerland).

 Maria Helena Ferraz has live recordings with Rádio Cultura in São Paulo and Globo TV in Rio. EAFIT from Colombia has released "La Nueva Música Sinfónica Colombiana," a CD of new symphonic music by 20th Century Colombian composers, including the piano concerto by Luis Antonio Escobar, with Maria-Helena Ferraz as piano soloist. The CD will be distributed throughout universities and libraries worldwide.

 She has appeared at many International Festivals as a teacher, chamber musician, accompanist, and director assistant including the International Music Festivals of Itú, Brazil, working with world renowned maestro Eleazar de Carvalho, and the III Festival Internacional de Música en Girona, Spain, where she has taught piano studio and piano master classes as an assistant of Luiz de Moura Castro.

 Maria-Helena Ferraz has given master classes in Piano Performance and workshops in Piano Pedagogy at universities and arts institutions in South America, the United States and Europe, including the very prestigious Hindemith Foundation in Switzerland. She was a faculty member of the Music School of Piracicaba, Brazil, for seven years, the University of Hartford-Hartt School, USA, for ten years and a teacher assistant to the Piano Department of the University of Arizona, School of Music, for five years. Several of her students have been prize winners in Regional and State Piano Competitions in USA and in Brazil. She has also served numerous times as an adjudicator in National Competitions in Brazil and State and Regional Competitions in the USA.

{Her teaching experience includes also private piano courses at all levels, music theory piano classes from kindergarten through college and Master’s  levels, piano pedagogy applied for college senior performance students, pre-school and kindergarten music appreciation courses, and chamber music classes.}

She has received numerous prizes in national competitions, including first prizes in National Competitions in Brazil and at the Paranov Competition at the University of Hartford in the USA, among others. She is the recipient of numerous awards and scholarships including CAPES - Brazilian Federal Government Scholarship, the State of São Paulo Government Scholarship, the International Course of Music Interpretation Scholarship in Spain, the Courses of High Pianistic Interpretation Scholarships in Italy and in the USA, and numerous talent awards and grants as an "Advisory Board Scholar" of the University of Arizona College of Fine Arts Dean’s Fund for Excellence.

Dr. Ferraz’s major studies began at the Faculdade Mozarteum and Faculdade Paulista, Brazil, where she studied with Beatriz Balzi and Gilberto Tinetti, and graduated with B.M. degrees in Piano Performance and Musical Education. At the University of Hartford, Hartt School, she graduated with a M.M. as a scholarship student of Luiz de Moura Castro. At the University of Arizona she graduated with D.M.A. in piano performance as a scholarship student of Nicholas Zumbro and Tannis Gibson.

She has participated regularly in master classes in Brazil, Spain, Italy and the USA with such noted artists as Lili Kraus, Moura Castro, Helena de Sá Costa, Violeta de Gainza, Thomas Mastroianni, Fernando Laires, and Margarita Viedorova. She has presented her Doctoral Lecture Recital with great success at the 5th Annual International Conference on Arts & Humanities in Hawaii, in 2007.

Maria Helena Ferraz’s doctoral dissertation has been published by Pro Quest. It is available for purchase from Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

Maria Helena was awarded various times by the Mayor’s Office of the city of Piracicaba, through the office of Cultural Affairs, in recognition for her participation and contribution in the development of Cultural Affairs’ activities and performances in Piracicaba, Brazil.

"The piano part catches one's attention for its virtuosism which the soloist Maria Helena Ferraz interpreted with total abandonment and expertise."

"A vigorous interpretation from the Orchestra and a magnificent interpretation by the soloist Maria Helena Ferraz contributed for the great success."

                  Rafael Vega Bustamante    El Colombiano Newspaper   Colombia

"The Concerto Fribourgeois was played to perfection and with mastery by Maria Helena Ferraz."

                  Bernard Sansonnens    La Liberté Newspaper   Switzerland

"Maria-Helena's interpretation was superb, resolute, consistent…with high technical level perfectly balanced with a matured sensibility of the great interpreters."

     Paulo Jusi    Piracicaba Newspaper    Brazil

"Maria-Helena Ferraz is placed as one of the most profound and brilliant interpreters… She possesses the most prominent qualities that a great artist needs…"

                             Almeida Prado

                             Composer (cited in the New Grove

                  Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., Vol. 20, 84)

"…Maria-Helena Ferraz is a complete musician. She lets the music flow in a completely organic way, presenting a clear and precise speech. She moves from piano solo to piano accompaniment without ever loosing quality: simple and moving…"

                             TD    La Liberté Newspaper     Switzerland

"…elegance and fluency of her [Maria Helena Ferraz’s] touch…It had beauty, poetry, charm in the expressiveness that overflows the texture of the superb masterpiece…"

    José da Veiga    Newspaper Diário Popular São Paulo    Brazil

"…it was an outstanding achievement not only because of the high quality of the playing, but  because of her [Maria Helena Ferraz’s] knowledge of the score made it possible for her to work so smoothly and so well with the Orchestra. "

                 Maestro Arthur Winograd

                 Former Music Director and Conductor  

                 The Hartford Symphony Orchestra    USA