Alicia Perea Maza

Pianist and piano teacher. Founder of the National School of Art (1962), which she directed for 16 years. She developed an intense teaching career as a piano professor.

She was born in La Habana. She began her musical studies with her mother Blanca Isabel de la Maza, continued them at the Conservatorio Peyrellade with Juana Valles de Goñi, and completed them at the Instituto Superior de Arte under the mentorship of Frank Fernández; she received master classes from Jorge Luis Prats. Graduate of the Conservatorio Carlos Alfredo Peyrellade and the Instituto Superior de Arte.

It is not possible to speak of musical education in the second half of the twentieth century in Cuba without mentioning her among the most distinguished names. It is also necessary to refer to her when discussing vocal or instrumental music, among its principal exponents.

After completing her studies at the Conservatorio Peyrellade, she began working as a professor at the Conservatorio Nacional Hubert de Blanck. From 1959 onwards, she held numerous responsibilities related to musical education.

In 1987 she held the position of Director of Music at the Ministry of Culture and when the Cuban Institute of Music was created, she became its president.

She has participated in successive reforms of artistic education that have taken place in the country, as well as in the preparation of study plans and methodological advice for piano instruction and other disciplines.

She has also developed an intense career as a performer, which she has increased in recent times, with recitals in almost all provinces of the country, and has recorded an album with works by Cuban composers of the most diverse tendencies.

She should be mentioned as one of the great promoters of music in the Cuban Revolution. And a skilled cultural diplomat, the experienced chamber pianist evolved toward the status of a respectable concert soloist, who through public presentations and excellent recordings disseminates in Cuba and throughout the world the work of significant Cuban composers, who had not found in other performers a source of communication with audiences, and also those who had.

Alberto Joya, in the note to the CD Alicia Perea. Danzas, contradanzas, habaneras y danzones, expressed:
«"Alicia Perea's pianistic development constitutes a 'sui generis' case. Endowed with natural pianistic skill and outstanding sensitivity, she was always guided by excellent teachers, thus creating a sure way of approaching great works from the universal piano repertoire, always putting technique at the service of music".

"Her diversity of color in the sound she produces on the piano interrelates her music with other artistic manifestations, Cuban colonial painting or architecture with its windows, grilles and stained glass […], which together with the flexibility in the treatment of agogic gives her interpretations an internal movement full of magic and seduction".»

Awards and Recognition
Alejo Carpentier Medal
Rafael María de Mendive Medal
Juan Marinello Order
Distinction for National Culture
Raúl Gómez García Medal
Special Cubadisco Prize for her CD "Twentieth Century Cuban Composers for Piano"
Emeritus Member of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba
Cubadisco Honor Prize 2014