Bose-Pastor Duo

 Pia Bose and Antonio Pastor, pianists
 

Photo: Jorge de la Vega

Second-prize winners of the 18th International Piano Duo Competition in Tokyo, Japan (2013), pianists PIA BOSE and ANTONIO PASTOR have been described as two pianists who "seem in perfect harmony and ideally complement each other." (Versoix Région). The pianists began their collaboration in 2009 with a performance during the Crumb at 80-Celebratory Festival held at the University of Colorado at Boulder in the U.S. and have since received praise for their "extreme precision and subtle dexterity" and their "alluring and exhilarating" performances as a four-hand piano duo. Natives of the U.S. and Spain, respectively, Pia Bose and Antonio Pastor officially formed the Bose-Pastor Duo in 2012. 

 

The Bose-Pastor Duo's performance highlights in 2014-15 include recitals during the St. Barnabas Friday Lunchtime Concerts in London, the Church of the Epiphany's Tuesday Concert Series in Washington, D.C., and the Fondation Heim concert series in Geneva. Other notable concert venues include St. James’s Piccadilly in London, presented by the Iberian and Latin American Music Society, the Edinburgh Society for Musicians, Fundación Eutherpe in León, Spain, and the American Church in Paris. In June, the duo performed before a full house at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, as part of St. Martin’s Embassy Series 2015 and upon the recommendation of the Embassy of Spain's Office of Cultural and Scientific Affairs.

 

The pianists’ shared interest in promoting Spanish culture and arts led them to co-found Association "Amigos de España," a non-profit organization whose primary project is Festival Goyescas, an annual festival of Spanish music, dance, arts, literature, and gastronomy in Geneva, Switzerland. Interviewed on Magma-Espace 2 (Radio Télévision Suisse) and featured in the May issue of Scènes Magazine, the duo performed the inaugural concert for the association at the Centre Musical Robert Dunand in Carouge, Switzerland in May, to an enthusiastic audience that included guest of honor M. Bernardo de Sicart Escoda, the Ambassador of Spain in Switzerland.

 

The duo also has a special interest in performing for charitable organizations, such as the Swiss-based Association Graine d’Affection, whose support benefits an orphanage for underprivileged children in Ecuador. The duo’s recent benefit concert for the association was greeted with warmth and enthusiastic acclaim. Last July, the duo performed during the Musique et Vie association's Concerts d'été en Vieille-Ville series, in benefit of underprivileged children who attend the Serey Sophon School of Khmer Art and Culture in Cambodia.

  

Pia Bose and Antonio Pastor are deeply committed to teaching and music education. In 2006, they each served as Assistant Coordinator and Professor of Chamber Music at the Escuela Internacional de Música ‘Presjovem’ in Lucena, Spain. A former member of the piano faculty at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale (U.S.) and the University of Texas at El Paso (U.S.), Ms. Bose currently maintains a private piano studio at the Centre des Arts of the École Internationale de Genève. Mr. Pastor has served on the piano faculty of the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève since 2007.

 

A graduate of the Peabody Institute (M.M.), Oberlin Conservatory (B.M.), and the University of Colorado (D.M.A.), Pia Bose studied with Marian Hahn, Joseph Schwartz, J.Y. Song, and Andrew Cooperstock. Ms. Bose also holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Oberlin College, where she studied neuroscience and biopsychology. Antonio Pastor holds degrees from the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève (Diplôme d’Enseignement), the Real Conservatorio de Música de Madrid (Profesor Superior de Piano), and the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Málaga (Profesor de Piano) and studied with Andrew Cooperstock, Sébastien Risler, Fernando Puchol, and Alfredo Gil. Pia Bose and Antonio Pastor both pursued graduate studies with Dominique Weber at the Conservatoire Supérieur et Académie de Musique Tibor Varga in Sion, Switzerland, where they obtained the Diplôme de Soliste. As soloists, Pia Bose and Antonio Pastor have performed in the United States and in Europe, at venues such as Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in New York, the Palais de l’Athénée in Geneva, and Preston Bradley Hall in Chicago, as part of a live radio broadcast of the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts on WMFT.

  

Pia Bose and Antonio Pastor are married to each other and reside in Geneva, Switzerland, with their English Cocker Spaniel, Aïros.