Jose Carlos Sequeira Costa

Having shown an exceptional musical talent at an early age he was sent to Lisbon, Portugal to study with the eminent pianist, composer, conductor and teacher José Vianna da Motta, a student of Hans von Bülow and Franz Liszt. Later, Costa would continue his studies in England with Mark Hamburg, in Switzerland with Edwin Fischer (where his classmates were Alfred Brendel and Paul Badura-Skoda) and in Paris with Marguerite Long and Jacques Février.

At the age of 22 he won the second prize, Grand Prix de la Ville de Paris, at the Marguerite Long International Piano Competition in Paris which truly launched an international career. Extensive tours of Europe and Africa ensued and work with such eminent conductors as Pedro de Freitas Branco and Lovro von Matačic followed. Five years later, Sequeira Costa would be the founder of the Vianna da Motta International Piano Competition, named in honour of his teacher, and one year later he was invited by Dmitri Shostakovich to become the youngest jury member of the first Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow which launched the career of American pianist Van Cliburn. He would return to this event as a jury member 6 times. Costa sat as a jury member at many other renowned competitions such as the Chopin, Leeds, Montreal and the Sviatoslav Richter Competition.

From 1976 to 2009 Sequeira Costa taught at the University of Kansas where he held the position of Cordelia Brown Distinguished Professor of Piano and during this time also gave masterclasses throughout the world.

Throughout his distinguished concert career, Costa performed in halls such as the Salle Gaveau, Salle Pleyel, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Suntory Hall, Musikverein, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Hall, Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall and Barbican Centre. Sequeira Costa performed with the BBC Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras, London Symphony, Royal Philharmonic (with whom he recorded both Chopin Concerti and all the works for piano and orchestra of Rachmaninoff), Moscow Philharmonic, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Bamberg Symphony, Japan Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra among many others. Conductors included Paul Kletzki, Joseph Keilberth, Libor Pešek, Maxim Shostakovich, David Zinman, Dmitri Kitaenko, Rudolf Barshai and Walter Hendl. An active chamber musician, Sequeira Costa partnered with Itzhak Perlman, Henryk Szeryng, Elmar Oliveira,Igor Oistrakh, Pavel Kogan, Janos Starker, Tibor Varga, Edwin Fischer and Artur Pizarro.

Costa’s extensive discography can be found on the RPO, Supraphon, Melodiya, Marco Polo, Naxos, Claudio, Collins Classics, Decca, EMI and Camerata Tokyo labels.

Sequeira Costa passed away on February 21, 2019 in Olathe, Kansas where he resided, surrounded by family and friends. He is survived by his wife Maria Laura, his children Alexandre, Marina, Svetlana, Vera and Carlos and his stepchildren Sara and Artur.