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Active as a performer, teacher, adjudicator and scholar, Dr. Ricardo de la Torre has appeared in concert venues in Mexico, the United States, Canada, Spain, Austria and France; including performances at the International Festival of Spanish Keyboard Music “Diego Fernández” in Almería, Viernes de Musikeon in Valencia, Spain, Foro Internacional de Música Nueva "Manuel Enríquez" in Mexico and the Winter Concert Series of the Estes Park Music Festival in Colorado.

 

As a soloist he has performed with the Aguascalientes Symphony Orchestra in Mexico and also in Bloomington at Indiana University, collaborating with conductors Román Revueltas and Fawzi Haimor, respectively. Some of his performances have been broadcast on Mexico City's classical music radio station Opus 94 and he has recorded for Indiana University's Latin American Music Center.

 

Ricardo has been a finalist and prize winner of several competitions in Mexico and the U.S. and has held grants and scholarships from different cultural and government institutions. He was awarded the second prize at the Eleventh Annual Competition in the Performance of Music from Spain and Latin America, sponsored by Indiana University's Latin American Music Center and the Office of Education of the Embassy of Spain (2008). The recordings he made for the Latin American Music Center as the result of this competition were included in the two-CD collection "Piano de Pampa y Jungla", produced by the LAMC. This recording received high praise from Fanfare magazine and Ricardo's performance of Ponce's Prelude and Fugue on a Theme by Handel was described as doing "the piece full justice, projecting an almost Busoni-like ruggedness, and providing one of the highlights of the set."

 

A native of Mexico City, Ricardo attended the pre-college program at the Escuela Superior de Música in his home town. He later received a Bachelor's degree with honors from this institution. During his time at this School, he studied with Ana María Tradatti and Fernando García Torres. He continued his studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he received a Master of Music degree and was a student of Evelyne Brancart and André De Groote. He earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Colorado Boulder, where he studied with David Korevaar and worked as a Teaching Assistant.

Ricardo has participated in masterclasses with pianists Jorge Federico Osorio, Peter Donohoe, Leon Fleisher, Jörg Demus, Cristina Ortiz, Jean-Paul Sevilla, Ursula Oppens, Roberto Prosseda, Gustavo Romero , Gregory Allen, Albert Atenelle and Bernard Flavigny,  among others.

 

Also active in scholarly endeavors, Ricardo has presented lectures and lecture-recitals at international conferences centered on the interpretation of Iberian music. His research on the Spanish-Cuban composer Julián Orbón has been published by the journal Pauta: Cuadernos de teoría y crítica musical in Mexico. Other research includes an essay on the editions of early Spanish keyboard music by Joaquín Nin published in the Colombian journal A contratiempo and one on the relationship of Enrique Granados and Cuba in Diagonal, a journal of the University of California, Riverside.

 

With experience instructing from the beginning stages to the college level, Ricardo is a dedicated teacher who enjoys working with students of various backgrounds. In demand as an adjudicator and visiting artist for Washington State Music Teachers Association's Music Artistry Program in Washington and Idaho, he has been invited to judge such events as the MTNA Northwest Division Competition, the Spokane Piano Competition and Pacific Lutheran University's Concerto Competition. Ricardo relocated to Washington State from Ada, OK, where he served on the faculty of East Central University teaching applied piano, class piano, music theory and Spanish. Currently, he teaches piano through the Community Music Program at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington where he also served as staff accompanist, he has taught at Pacific Lutheran University and is pianist at First Lutheran Church in Tacoma. He directs the church's summer concert series Listen Live at Lunch and forms a piano duo with Lark Powers.