Jorge Osorio (1951-present)

Mexican pianist. He trained at the conservatory in Mexico City and the Paris Conservatoire, and later at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, making his official début in 1964 at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. The winner of numerous international awards, he has made admired recordings of music by Beethoven, Brahms, Ponce, Prokofiev, Ravel and Tchaikovsky. He has also proved to be a sensitive interpreter of Debussy and Schubert. His playing combines a beautiful, rounded tone with an impressive grasp of large-scale structure, and while he commands a virtuoso technique he has never been a flamboyant player. Osorio’s interpretations are notable for a classical sense of proportion and an eloquence which always puts the composer first. Two works by the Mexican composer Carlos Jiménez Mabarak have been dedicated to him, and in 1969 he gave the first ever performances in Mexico and Guatemala of Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C, k503. He is also an accomplished chamber musician whose partners have included Henryk Szeryng, Mayumi Fujikawa, Richard Markson, the mezzo-soprano Conchita Antuñano, and the Tel-Aviv and Moscow string quartets.