Colombian pianist, composer and improviser Mauricio Arias-Esguerra is one of the most complete voices on Colombia’s contemporary piano scene, where performance, composition and improvisation coexist with remarkable naturalness. He has appeared at venues including Carnegie Hall in New York, the Cartagena Music Festival, the Bogotá Sacred Music Festival, the Popayán Religious Music Festival, the Bogotá Festival at the Teatro Mayor, and the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy, where he performed with the Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra. He has collaborated with artists such as singers Valeriano Lanchas and Betty Garcés, as well as trumpeter Pacho Flores, and in 2021 gave the Colombian premiere of Camargo Guarnieri’s Concertino for Piano and Orchestra with the National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia.

He studied piano with Ludmiła Weber at the Fundación Universitaria Juan N. Corpas and earned a doctorate from Arizona State University, where he worked under Baruch Meir and Robert Hamilton. He is the winner of the First National Federico Chopin Piano Competition and the UIS National Piano Competition, and has received awards in international competitions including Cervantes, Kingsville, Panama, Peabody Mason and Bösendorfer USASU. As a composer, he has received commissions from the National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia and the University of Florida Symphonic Band, and has released the albums La trompeta camaleónica and ¡Colombia Viva!, the latter on the Toccata Next label.

A founding member of the Bogotá Piano Trio and Assistant Professor at the Universidad de los Andes, Mauricio Arias-Esguerra represents the versatility of a new generation of Colombian pianists who move seamlessly between performance, composition and artistic research.

At the XXI Cartagena Music Festival, Mauricio Arias-Esguerra brings the artistic strength of a pianist-composer whose work reaffirms the dialogue between the classical tradition and contemporary Colombian creation.