CURRICULUM
Ester Vela Lopez
A solid career of more than 30 years as a performer.
Ester Vela López (Barcelona, 1972) is a pianist, composer and musicological researcher, and Professor at the Barcelona Municipal Conservatory of Music since 2012.
She received her first piano training with Anna Maria Pinto and M.ª Rosa Ribas, and completed her higher studies with M.ª Jesús Crespo at the Conservatori Superior Municipal de Música de Barcelona, where she also studied solfège, music theory, transposition and accompaniment (with Xavier Boliart and Carles Guinovart) and chamber music (with Liliana Maffiotte). She pursued postgraduate piano studies with Àngel Soler.
She was awarded scholarships by the Spanish Ministry of Culture in 1995 and by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Luxembourg Ministry of Culture in 1997 for a course at the Luxembourg Conservatory with Teofils Bikis. From AIE (Artistas, Intérpretes o Ejecutantes) she received grants in 1998 for an international piano course in Loosdorf (Vienna) with Rosa Maria Kucharski, Yasuko Mitsui, Stephen Möller and Kyoko Ogawa; in 1999 and 2000 to carry out postgraduate studies with the pianist Àngel Soler; and in 2009, 2010 and 2011 to study at the Taller de Músics.
She studied at the Aula de Música Tradicional i Popular (2003–2010).
She attended international courses and masterclasses with pianists such as Brigitte Meyer, Peter Eicher, Sofia Puche and Árpád Bodó.
In 1993 she formed a piano duo with her sister Eulàlia Vela. They have given numerous concerts throughout Spain, as well as in Austria, the Philippines and Belgium, and have recorded five CDs.
Published a book on the language of music, Materials per a l’accés al grau professional (Ed. Boileau. 2006. 2008. 2025).
Since 2020 she has presented her research on women composers and her own works in concerts and conferences across Spain and in numerous European countries (Slovenia, Estonia, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway, Portugal), as well as in Israel, Cuba and the USA.
She has researched and edited the works of Narcisa Freixas (12 volumes, Ed. Boileau, published between 2016 and 2026) and recorded the composer’s complete piano works (La mà de Guido). She has also published and recorded the complete piano works of Lluïsa Casagemas, as well as a CD of Casagemas’s songs with soprano M.ª Teresa Garrigosa.
As a composer, she is the author of more than fifty works for diverse instrumental ensembles, composed between 1991 and the present.
Strongly committed to contemporary music, she has premiered several works by Spanish composers including Anna Bofill, Xavier Boliart, Delfín Colomé, Consuelo Colomer, Edmundo Eckart, Víctor Estapé, Jordi Flaquer, Domingo M. González de la Rubia, Albert Guinovart, David Llorens, Miquel Pardo-Llungarriu, Alla Penkina, Josep M.ª Mestres Quadreny, M.ª Rosa Ribas, Joan Riera, Mario Ros, Ociavi Rumbau, Antoni-Olaf Sabater, Francesc Taverna-Bech, Mercè Torrents, Jordi Vilaprinyó and Frederic Wort.