Diego Ares ANTONIO SOLER El Diablo Vestido de Fraile

Diego Ares, born in Vigo in 1983, studied piano with Aldona Dvarionaitė and Alis Jurgelionis, and harpsichord with Pilar Cancio (Spain), Richard Egarr (Holland), Jesper Christensen and Jörg-Andreas Bötticher (Switzerland).

As harpsichord soloist, Diego Ares has performed extensively in Spain, France, Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, and Japan.

For his first CD, he recorded Soler’s Fandango and two harpsichord concertos by J. S. Bach with the Island of Menorca Chamber Orchestra conducted by Farran James (Columna Musica, 2006). His two solo recordings for Pan Classics have been praised by audiences and critics: “El Diablo vestido de fraile,” harpsichord music by P. Fr. Antonio Soler, was given the Diapason d’Or and recommended by “The Record Geijutsu”; “Vivi felice,” harpsichord sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti, was also awarded the Diapason d’Or and rated exceptional by Scherzo Magazine.

Diego Ares BACH Goldberg Variationen

In the thirty-two movements that make up the Goldberg Variations, Bach offers us a perfect equilibrium between structure, proportion, counterpoint and melody. Diego Ares, for whom this remarkable work has been a lifelong inspiration, sees the key to it in the notion of travel: a moving trip to different environments, enriched by new experiences in the course of the variations, the last of which (the Quodlibet) marks the composer's salutary return home. A profound and humanistic message and an angle from which the Variations have rarely been approached before.

Diego Ares ANTONIO SOLER Harpsichord Sonatas from the Morgan Library

Diego Ares (Vigo 1983) studied piano with Alis Jurgelionis and Aldona Dvarionaitė. He obtained the first prize at Primer Concurso de piano RCN de Vigo when he was only fourteen years old, and also the first prize at the International Piano Contest N. Rubinstein, in Paris, when he was fifteen.

He started studying harpsichord in 1998, in Vigo, with Pilar Cancio. When he was eighteen years old he moved to the Netherlands in order to study at the Royal Conservatoir of Den Haag, and also to Amsterdam to study with Richard Egarr. There he would meet Joel Katzman, from whom he received several advices. In those years he received the second prize in harpsichord playing at Concurso Permanente Juventudes Musicales de España. He moved to Switzerland in 2004 to study at Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and follow his studies with Jörg-Andreas Bötticher and Jesper B. Christensen. There he obtained his harpsichord degree in 2007, with the highest honours and congratulations from the board of professors. Since that year on, he has been studying Continuous with Jesper B. Christensen and at the same time he has been furthering his education with pianist Laszlo Gyimesi.

He has performed many concerts as a soloist in Spain (Festival Extensión de Granada, Festival Internacional de Música y Danza de Santander, Festival de Música Antigua de Barcelona, Festival de Músicas Religiosas y del Mundo de Girona, Ciclo Cinco generaciones de pianistas españoles (+ un clavecinista) at Teatro Villamarta in Jerez, Concerts during the summer courses of Universidad Complutense de Madrid at el Escorial, concerts at Fundación Juan March in Madrid, etc.), France (Festival Cordes Sensibles), Switzerland (together with the Chamber Orchestra of Orquesta Geneve interpreting the harpsichord concerts by Manuel de Falla and Frank Martin at Victoria Hall, etc.), Germany (Opening Concert for Die Dame mit dem Cembalo about Wanda Landowska in Berlín, concerts with the ensemble Madrid-Berlín, etc.), The Netherlands (Utrecht Ancient Music Festival, together with a tour playing Goldberg Variations by J. S. Bach) and Japan (Tokyo Opera City Hall).