BIO
Marcia Marchesi's compositions have been performed in the US, South America, Europe and Asia. A native of Brazil, Marchesi started studying piano and theory with her grandmother at the age of 4. She was admitted to the Brazilian Conservatory of Music, where she received piano and theory instruction by Mirtes Helena Roman. Other early teachers include pianists Andre Luis Rangel and Ondine de Mello. Her first public recital was at the age of 6, and at 8 she was the gold medalist at the Lucia Branco National Piano Competition. Subsequent competitions and awards followed over the next 6 years, and at the age of 14, Marchesi moved to Vienna, Austria, with her family. There she received piano instruction from internationally known pianist Michael Krist, who also introduced her to the study of harmony and composition. At the age of 16, her composition "A Happy Ending Story" was selected among hundreds of entries for performance at the Vienna School Act music festival, and made the final 12 pieces which were recorded. An invitation to join the AKM (ASCAP Austrian equivalent) and AustroMechana (Harry Fox Agency Austrian equivalent) followed that year. This piece later became the opening tune for a program on Austrian Radio.
While attending the Vienna International School, Marcia Marchesi fell in love with the theater, and at 17 had her first musical performed (accompanied by an orchestra which she conducted). This led to her first commission - a tuba concerto. She was awarded the Jimmy Kelleher Award for most promising student at VIS (1987). Upon HS graduation, she was admitted to the composition department at the Music University of Vienna, where she studied composition and music theory with Dietmar Schermann and Kurt Schwertsik, orchestration with Ertugrul Sevsay, conducting with Peter Burwik, and piano with Regina Seidlhofer. During that time, her pieces were performed at venues in Austria, including the Musikverein, and also at two International Music Festivals in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Other premieres include an organ festival in Japan, and another full-length musical. She graduated from the Music University with a Master's Degree (and an Austrian Government Merit Award for International Students), and moved to the US to pursue doctoral studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Marcia Marchesi's interests go beyond the concert stage, and include film and musical theater. In 2006, she was selected with 17 other composers in the US to participate in the prestigious ASCAP/NYU Buddy Baker Film Scoring Workshop, where she worked with industry greats such as David Spear, Ira Newborn, and Ron Sadoff. She also returned to her long-time passion - musical theater - composing, accompanying and music-directing in the Boulder area. In 2008, her one-act musical comedy "Once Upon a Dream" was premiered at the Center for Musical Arts' Broadway Bound Musical Theater Summer Camp, and more recently "North and South, the Musical" had a staged reading at the Dairy Center for the Arts (Boulder).
Marchesi is a two-time ASCAPLUS award-winner. Other awards include the University of Colorado Cecil Effinger Fellowship in Composition (1997), Commendation for Outstanding Service to the Vienna International School (1988), Antonio Carlos Gomes Piano Competition - First Place (1983), and Lucia Branco National Piano Competition - Fourth Place and honorary prize for best interpretation of a foreign work (1982). She was also a finalist in The American Prize in 2014, in the Chamber Music category, and a semi finalist in the Choral Music category. Dr. Marchesi's music is heard on Public Radio, and in performance venues in the area and abroad. She is currently director of music at Nativity of Our Lord Church in Broomfield, where she conducts the main choir and orchestra.
