Biografia

I was raised in a samba school in the countryside of São Paulo State. At age 11, I saw a piano for the first time and fell in love with it. From my very first music lesson I improvised, composed and played the music of others. But as I went to study in renowned music institutions both in Brazil and abroad, I was faced
with a tremendous lack of representation of women composers in books, music history classes, in the composition faculty, and in concert programs.

I also felt that classical music training did not allow space for developing one’s creativity. So, I felt the need to engage in other musical practices such as jazz, and Brazilian popular and instrumental music. While I was developing a solid career as a concert pianist and chamber musician, I was also composing for and performing with jazz and Brazilian instrumental music groups. I became quite renowned as a contemporary music pianist, having premiered hundreds of new works in Brazil and the US, several of them dedicated to me.

I also recorded 17 CDs dedicated to new music both as soloist and chamber musician, for which I’ve received several prizes. As an interpreter of the common practice repertoire, I have had several engagements as a soloist with Brazilian orchestras, and performed solo and chamber recitals in Europe,
South, Central, and North America. My career as a pianist was going well, except I felt I needed to integrate my diverse background. That was the moment I decided to embrace a career as a composer in order to bring together the multiplicity of my musical experiences by creating a unique language and style that does not recognize the frontiers between classical and popular music.

Pianist, composer and researcher, Catarina Domenici is a Full Professor at the Federal University at Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where she teaches both at the post-graduate and graduate levels. She received a Master and a Doctoral degree from the Eastman School of Music, where she served as an assistant to
Professor Penneys, and was awarded the Performer’s Certificate and the Lizzie Teege Mason award. She has received scholarships from the Chautauqua Institution and the Brazilian Government Agency for the
Development of Science (CNPq), and was as post-doctoral fellow at the University at Buffalo. Her research on composer-performer interactions in contemporary music has been published and presented in international symposiums in Asia, Europe, and South America. She is a frequent guest speaker at national symposiums and international institutions, and has served as a faculty in several music festivals in Brazil and abroad.

As a pianist she has performed in England, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Uruguay, Guatemala, Costa Rica,
Brazil and the US, and has received several prizes as a soloist and chamber musician for her performances and recordings. As a composer, she received commissions from King’s College London, São Paulo Municipal Theater Foundation, Santo Andre Symphony Orchestra, and her works have been
performed by USP Symphony Orchestra, Federal University of Paraiba Symphony Orchestra, and Santa Maria Symphony Orchestra. Her chamber and piano solo works have been presented in Germany, Italy, England, Brazil, and the US.

Domenici is the founder of the Brazilian Association for Music Performance
(ABRAPEM) and an ambassador for the Donne Foundation.