Around the Music Festival

Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires has announced that she is taking an immediate hiatus due to a heart condition. A tour to Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, and Chile scheduled for last October and November had also been canceled. In a post on her social networking site, she wrote that her condition is on the road to recovery and that she hopes to resume concerts and travel next April.

Pires, 79, was born in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, and although she announced at the end of 2017 that she would retire from the active stage in 2018, she has continued to perform internationally ever since. For the past few years she has been based in Salvador, Brazil, where she teaches at the Queen Elisabeth University of Music in Belgium.

PHOTO：Gulbenkian Música