Biography

María Parra is a pianist and composer with a classical background, that now covers a wide range of audiences.

She was awarded an Honors Class Degree on her final year of the Higher Piano Program, a Master’s Degree in Spanish music with Alicia de Larocha at the Marshall Academy of Barcelona, and gained specialization with Prisca Benoit at the Paris Conservatory.

In her younger years she alternated her study of the classics in the conservatories of Tarragona, Vilaseca, and Barcelona with modern composition and improvisation at the workshop studio Músicos de Barcelona. She played with various bands and combos, which enabled her to become familiar with the jazzy vocabulary that she currently uses in her compositions. A hybrid, eclectic universe emerged, made up of both the classic tradition and the latest trends in music.

She has released three albums, two on the classical side, Rêverie (Verso 2014) and Mouvement (Orpheus 2016, presented in Paris in November 2016). Both have received the best criticism from the specialised Spanish press. She has performed and given concerts that have been recorded and broadcasted through Radio Clásica (RNE). She was awarded the “Melómano de Oro” for Rêverie, and Mouvement was selected one of the Top 10 “Discs for history” (Discos para la historia) of the RITMO magazine, in which she was featured artist of the month in January 2017.

At the beginning of July 2020, she published in digital format VISION, her first album composed entirely by her, with the multinational record company Warner Music. The release in physical format was on September 18th. With the CD GEA she won the Más Músicas 2023 Award for “Best classical album”.

In 2013 she created the Bouquet Festival of Tarragona, and later the Vermusic of Reus, two festivals that combined historical heritage, music and vermut wine to foster young talent.

She was artistic director of Mediterraneando, the performing event of Carmen Paris and herself on October 27th 2018, which set down the cultural agenda for the XVIII Mediterranean Games of Tarragona. With her, she also participated in the Piano Day 2019 and, on request, in FIAS 2020 at the Prado Museum.

She has taken part in various Spanish festivals and music cycles as a soloist, in camera and orchestra (Ellas Crean, Clásicos en Verano, Piano Day, FIAS, 21Distritos, Miradas al Sur, Autores de teclas of the SGAE Foundation, Madrid Jazz Festival, etc.) and offered concerts in France (Bordeaux, Paris, Chateaux Chantants Festival, Périgord Festival), Austria (Salzburg), Germany (Köln, Düsseldorf, Ensemblia and Neckagemünd), and Italy (Florence, Pianorama Festival).

Furthermore, María Parra has been one of the artists selected by AECID (Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development) for its 2020-21 catalog that showcases Spanish creative talent around the world. During that period her work was given visibility through the VENTANA program. With the agency she also participated with “Miradas al Sur”, in the dissemination of Spanish culture around the October 12th of 2020.

María Parra has wanted to go further with her music, taking her to a modern formation, a trio, with jazz echoes. The María Parra Trio, led by her, began in mid-2021. In this group, María is accompanied by two of the most relevant figures on the Spanish jazz scene, Miguel Rodrigañez on double bass and Gonzalo Maestre on drums.

In addition, María has been the main actress in the short film Venus, produced by the ECIR. In this short she is a concert performer and composer in which she performs her work “Avalon”.

And it is precisely because of the strong pictorial influence of her music, thanks to the influence of her father Alfonso Parra, a renowned Spanish painter, who is encouraged to enter the universe of audiovisual creation. After being chosen for the “XIX Workshop on sound and music for cinema”, convened by the SGAE Foundation, an immense creative world has opened up for María in the field of cinema.

On May 27, 2022, GEA, her fourth studio album, and second album as a composer, has been released with Warner Music Spain with the work she composed in the most difficult moments of the pandemic; and on May 24, 2024, her first CD with her trio, Intuition, is scheduled for release. During the second half of 2024 she will release the Ethereal EP with Warner.