Long ago in the 60's, my mother Elba wanted to become a classical concert pianist; she studied in Manhattan with an Italian maestro, but later on got married and quit lessons. Sometimes I think that she influenced me from an ethereal realm as my birth was foretold to her in the cards. I was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico as Ángel Mario Avilés on October of 1974. My godfather nicknamed me "Marito" before I was born. He was Manuel Gayol, a famed legendary Puerto Rican guitarist with a Manuel de Falla look-alike. Gayol packed Carnegie Hall several times with his classical Spanish guitar concertos in the late 40's. He had three grandchildren who were my best friends and neighbors. It was in his house where I was introduced to music while he taught guitar and violin on the porch where I used to sit and listen. However, I formally started playing piano at ten and teaching it at fifteen, as one time I said to a fellow piano teacher in town and she blasted me with "I started teaching at twelve!" So much for "le privilage de l'âge".
The first piano performer that influenced me was Philip Entremont playing the Chopin Waltzes. Van Cliburn's Tchaikovsky Concerto, Glenn Gould & Wanda Landowska with Bach, Rubinstein with both Chopin & Manuel de Falla, and Horowitz with Rachmaninoff & Scriabin. I was totally engross with Gieseking’s playing of Ravel & Debussy, and William Kapell with Bach & Rachmaninoff.
All these teachers have had a legacy of historical musical instinct that I hope to embody in my playing and silence. I have played piano for 23 years and taught it for 18. Worked as a translator for various publishing houses including the American Educational Music Publications inc., obtained a bachelors degree in Theology, Philosophy, and a diploma in Bible. There is a lot to write about the people in my life, wise anecdotes, horrors and jokes, I don't think of myself as a writer, but I am leaving all those stories in a book. Who knew?
***********************************************
Mario Avilés studied piano under: Olga Barber (Enríque Pedreira [Stojowski]), Alba Rosa Castro (Enríque Pedreira), Cecilia Talavera (Sanromá [Paderewski], Elisa Tavárez and Manuel G. Tavárez [Daniel Auber & Eugen D'Albert]), Irma Izern (Ives Nat), teacher at Indian Hills Community College Michael Phillipson (Santiago Rodríguez), teacher at IWC Dr. Joel Brown (Abbey Simon [Józef Hofmann]). Most influential coach/teacher/mentor Edwin Ramos (William Kapell [Olga Samaroff & Artur Schnabel], Pablo Casals & Sanromá [Paderewski]), last teacher Paul Jones (Leon Fleisher, Alicia de Larrocha, Vladimir Horowitz and Gyorgy Sandor [Béla Bartók]).