Acclaimed for his “sophisticated handling of the sound” and “stupendous virtuosity”, Abel Sánchez-Aguilera has given recitals in twelve countries of Europe and America (Spain, France, UK, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Hungary, Bulgaria, Italy, Russia, USA and Brazil), on stages such as the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building (Oxford), Mozarteum (Salzburg), Gasteig (Munich), Théâtre du Châtelet (Paris), Scriabin Memorial Museum (Moscow), Sheremetev Palace (St.Petersburg) and Bulgaria Chamber Hall (Sofia). He has performed in festivals such as the Salzburger Festspiele (2013) and Musikfest Stuttgart (2014, 2016), and as a soloist with the New Philarmonia Orchestra and the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto performing Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto.

His teachers include Fernando Puchol, Juan Carlos Martínez, Sebastián Mariné and Ya-Fei Chuang. He obtained a Higher Diploma in piano and a Master’s degree in New Technologies and Contemporary Music at the Royal Conservatoire of Music, Madrid. Subsequently he continued his studies at the New England Conservatory in Boston and at the Salzburg Mozarteum Internationale Sommerakademie, which he attended for six consecutive summers. He has also received artistic advice from masters like Robert Levin, Luiz de Moura Castro, Ilze Graubin and Marisa Montiel.

A laureate of several international competitions, Abel Sánchez-Aguilera has been particularly praised for his interpretation of the modern and contemporary piano repertoire. He was awarded First Prize in the Alexander Skrjabin competition (Salzburg, 2015), First Prize and contemporary music award in the Open Piano Competition (2013), the Prize of the Mozarteum Sommerakademie (2013), First Prize Musik der Extraklasse (Salzburg, 2011) for his performance of Pierre Boulez’s Second Sonata, First Prize (piano category) and overall Third Prize in the Premio Città di Padova (2016), among others.

He is particularly devoted to the repertoire after 1900 and has a preference for large complex works, ambitious projects and rarely played music. In 2015 he performed Scriabin’s complete piano sonatas on the occasion of the centenary of the composer’s death. In 2019 he gave the Spanish première of Sorabji’s 2.5-hour Toccata seconda per pianoforte and the first performance of this work in the UK since 1936. His recording of this work for Piano Classics has been praised by international critics. In 2022 he gave the world première of another large-scale work, the recently discovered Toccata terza, which he has also recorded on disc (to be released in early 2024).

As a musical editor he has prepared the first editions of several of Sorabji’s unpublished works (Toccata terza and the Piano Symphonies nos. 0, 1 and 3, totalling over 1000 pages of printed music) and is a coauthor of a new edition of Opus clavicembalisticum, currently under preparation.

He has appeared in the documentary HALFFTER: 90 compases (2021), directed by Juan Vicente Chuliá.

Prior to his current full-time career as a pianist, Abel Sanchez-Aguilera obtained a Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and conducted research on leukaemia in laboratories of Spain and the USA, making relevant contributions to this field. His studies on the drug tamoxifen as a possible treatment for blood cancers led to a clinical trial currently ongoing in the UK.

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