Jury

Born in Córdoba, he studied at the Conservatory of his hometown with María Teresa García Moreno and Rafael Quero, obtaining the final honor award. He has also received advice from Dimitri Bashkirov, Maria Curcio, Rosa Sabater, Christopher Elton, Manuel Carra and Rafael Orozco, among others. After winning several national piano competitions and giving concerts throughout Spain and several European countries, an injury forced him to abandon his concert career in the 1990s. Since then he focused his work on his piano chair (obtained in 1987 through competition with number one) and on the direction of the Superior Conservatory of Music of Córdoba, a position he held until 2010.

Doctor cum laude in Humanities from the Rey Juan Carlos University of Madrid, he has taught courses and seminars at several Spanish universities and conservatories, which he has simultaneously worked as a music critic and contributor to specialized magazines, advisor to Radio Clásica, and member of the Royal Academia de Córdoba, patron of the Antonio Gala Foundation for Young Creators, member of the jury in international competitions held in Spain (Jaén, Valladolid, Las Rozas, Benicasim…) and the authorship of several books; among them, the biography of the great pianist Rafael Orozco.

Precisely, dedicated to such a distinguished artist, now deceased, in 2002 he promoted the creation of the ‘Rafael Orozco’ Piano Festival, being its artistic director since then and through which brilliant pianists of more than thirty nationalities have participated. Among others, Grigory Sokolov, Elisabeth Leonskaia, Arcadi Volodos, Nikolai Lugansky, Boris Gilburg, Akiko Ebi, Jorge Luis Prats, Alexandre Kantorow, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Yulianna Avdeeva  and Joaquín Achúcarro.

Currently, he adds to the aforementioned occupations that of General Coordinator of Cultural Policies of the Córdoba City Council and president of the Córdoba Orchestra Consortium, and the preparation of a monograph on the history of pianism in the 20th century, from Rachmaninov to Kissin.