Queen of the Ivory Keys

It is said that Gabriela Montero began playing piano at age 0. That is, she was just seven months old when she first laid her finger on a key and by eighteen months she’d already learned to play the National Anthem of Venezuela — her country of origin. Montero’s forte is, undoubtedly, improvisation — a talent that she supplements with an unbelievable ear for music. She can improvise around the structure of anything from piano masterpieces such as Rachmaninoff’s “Third Piano Concerto” and Chopin’s “Nocturne in C minor,” to standards like “Happy Birthday” and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” It’s this skill that truly separates her as one of the greatest and most versatile classical pianists of our time.


Montero has charm, elegance and grace both in her playing and the way she carries herself. She can effectively pull an audience into the experience of classical piano while maintaining the poise of a truly great show-woman. Montero’s Jaqua Concert Hall performance will be a solo recital to back the release of her 2010 recording Solatino. The album itself is a collection of Latin American compositions taken in by Montero and made all her own. In a recent interview about the collection, Montero described the recording process as “a voyage of who we are and what we’re made of, and the way that we express ourselves.”

Gabriela Montero will play at 7:30 pm Friday, April 29, at the Jaqua Concert Hall; $12-$36.

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