Arthur Moreira Lima

Brazilian pianist Arthur Moreira Lima, winner of three major piano competitions, has devoted much of his repertoire to the works of Chopin and compatriots such as Villa-Lobos. Born in Rio de Janeiro on July 16, 1940, he studied piano from the age of six, with Lucia Branco, who trained Nelson Freire, Marguerite Long in Paris and Rudolf Kehrer in Moscow. In 1965, he won 2nd place and the Audience and Best Sonata prizes at the Fryderyk Chopin Competition in Warsaw, before going on to win 3rd prize at the Leeds International Competition in 1969, and 3rd prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1970. From then on, he embarked on a solo career throughout the world, with Chopin as his favorite composer, whose complete piano works he recorded in the 1970s. Arthur Moreira Lima also promoted, both on record and in concert, Brazilian composers such as Villa-Lobos, Ernesto Nazareth, Radames Gnattali, Francisco Mignone, Brasilio Itiberê da Cunha and Antônio Carlos Gomes, who were little known to the public at the time. He also recorded works by Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Moussorgski, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Prokofiev and Scriabin. He also works in his own country to democratize classical music in underprivileged neighborhoods, with the itinerant Piano pela Estrada program and other initiatives. On October 30, 2024, Arthur Moreira Lima died of colon cancer at the age of 84.