Sergio Tiempo quickly rose to international prominence since making his professional debut at the age of 14 in the 'Great Pianists' series at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw in 1986.
He now appears across the world in recital and with orchestras and has performed under the direction of Claudio Abbado, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Leonard Slatkin and Michael Tilson Thomas and worked with orchestras such as Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Montreal Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra and the Tokyo Philharmonic. Tiempo has also appeared twice in recent seasons with fellow-countryman Gustavo Dudamel, first with the Orchestra Sinfonica dell’ Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and subsequently with the Bamberg Symphoniker.
He plays at various major international music festivals including the Salzburg Festival, Schleswig-Holstein, Colmar, Verbier and Toulouse Festivals, and at the Dias da Musica festival in Lisbon for both concerto and recital performances. He has been a guest at the Martha Argerich and Friends Festival in Munich and the Festival Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli in Bergamo and is a regular guest at the Progetto Martha Argerich in Lugano, performing there annually.
Tiempo has recorded Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit and three Chopin Nocturnes as part of the EMI Classics 'Martha Argerich Presents' series. The recording was given the following accolade from Le Monde de la Musique: "Fantastic! That is the word which springs to mind on listening to this passionate recording. I haven't heard a performance of Pictures at an Exhibition as personal, imaginative and exciting as this since Moiseiwitch, Horowitz, Richter, Engerer and Pogorelich..."
Sergio Tiempo has also made a number of recordings too with Mischa Maisky, most recently a highly successful disc of Rachmaninov on Deutsche Gramophon. Classic FM awarded the recording 5* and wrote, "The two partners complement each other in both virtuosity and sensitivity – and Tiempo deserves a medal of his own as Rachmaninov’s piano writing in the Cello Sonata is as demanding as in his concertos.”
Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Tiempo began his piano studies with his mother, Lyl Tiempo, at the age of two years and made his concert debut when he had just turned three. Whilst at the Fondazione per il Pianoforte in Como, Italy, he worked with Dimitri Bashkirov, Fou Tsong, Murray Perahia and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. He has received frequent musical guidance and advice from Martha Argerich, Nelson Freire and Nikita Magaloff.
Highlights this season include concerts with the DSO Berlin, Scottish CO, Malaysian PO, Singapore SO, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra at the Tallinn International Pianists Festival and at the Hong Kong Festival with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, where he will also give a recital. He has recitals at the Chopin Festival in Warsaw, the Klara Festival in Brussels, and in Portugal and Italy. Future engagements include concerts with the Halle Orchestra, Iceland SO, RTE Dublin, Gothenburg SO, Malmö SO and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France as well as recitals at the Vienna Konzerthaus and London’s Wigmore Hall, and a chamber concert at the Berlih Philharmonie with members of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
Sergio Tiempo is represented by Jessica Ford at Intermusica, jford@intermusica.co.uk
May 2009 / 508 words. Not to be altered without permission. Please destroy all previous biographical material.