Marilia Caputo

Brazilian pianist Marilia Caputo has performed throughout Europe, Latin America, and the United States as soloist and as a collaborative pianist with violinists Koh-Gabriel Kameda, Daniel Guedes and Ignace Jang, the Sao Paulo String Quartet, with singers Juliana Gondek, Sony recording artist Atalla Ayan, Reginaldo Pinheiro, and cellists Antonio Del Claro and Barbara Switalska.

Caputo has performed such venues as Weill Hall, New York; in Moscow, Russia at Rachmaninoff Hall, Malie Sall, and Glinka Museum; in Salzburg, Austria at the Mozarteum; in Germany at the Brahms Haus and in Rio de Janeiro at Cecilia Meireles Hall, at the Pepperdine University Festival (Malibu, California), Northern Chamber Music Festival (Brazil), Para International Chamber Music Festival (Brazil), Summit Festival (New York) and Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, where she also coached.

Caputo started taking piano lessons in Belem, Para, Brazil. Just a couple of months before turning nine, her parents moved to the United States where she continued her studies with Janice Sharon in Santa Barbara, UCSB, and later with Val Underwood. With only two years of formal training, she was a winner at the Santa Barbara Young Artists Competition. That same year, she played in a master class with Argentinean pianist Eduardo Delgado at Steinway Hall in Los Angeles, which was broadcast on educational television.

Returning to Brazil in 1984, at the Villa-Lobos Piano Competition she was awarded Best Interpreter of Villa-Lobos and Audience Prize. In 1989, Brazil, she met Nelson Freire at series of master classes in Paraiba, who "was most impressed with her natural talent for the piano." Influenced by Nelson's recommendation that should pursue her music studies outside of Brazil, she decided to compete in Rio de Janeiro for a scholarship that would later send her to Moscow, Russia. The competition was held at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. There she was awarded a seven-year full scholarship to attend the Moscow Conservatory, where she completed her master's degree under the guidance ofLudmila Rochina (a pupil of Samuel Feinberg) and Alexander Shtarkman. In 1998, she was awarded the "Virtuose" scholarship by the Brazilian Ministry of Culture, while studying with Boris Slutsky at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore.

Caputo completed her DMA degree at Rutgers University, studying with Paul Hoffmann and was the first recipient of the Colonel Robert B. and Dr. Charlotte Craig Award. Her dissertation was on the unpublished first version ofRachmaninoffs Second Piano Sonata. With the help of the Brazilian Embassy in Moscow, Marilia was able to travel to Russia and explore manuscripts left behind by Rachmaninoff, during pre-revolutionary times, and rarely mentioned in Western piano literature. In press.

She taught in the successful 'Carollo' scholarship program at Newark School of the Arts. While in the NSA she coordinated many Steinway Preludes at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) in Newark. Her students opened concerts for Nikolai Luganky, Yuja Wang, and Lang Lang, among others.

Marilia is currently the Artistic Director at Funda9ao Amazonica de Musica (FAM) in Brazil. Her commitment is to transform the lives of Brazilian youth and expand the institution's reputation internationally. In 2022 FAM students played at Expo-Dubai, and currently holds partnerships with OSB (Brazilian Symphonic Orchestra) in Rio de Janeiro and Orquestra Filarmonica de Minas Gerais. FAM sponsored concerts have included artists such as Dmitry Shishkin, Antonio Menezes, Eva Gevorgyan, Sergey Kolesov, Nelson Freire and others.