Curious and enthusiastic, she is one of the busiest and most versatile artists at present. She is a specialist in historical keyboards and equally at ease with the harpsichord, the organ or the fortepiano.
Born in Zaragoza, she won First Prize at the Concurso Permanente de Juventudes Musicales in 1996 in Harpsichord and Organ. She has also been recognised with a Jury’s Special Prize for best historically informed performance and Honourable Mention at the Concurso Internacional "Primavera de Praga" 1999 or Honourable Mention at the Bruges International Harpsichord Competition (Belgium) 2001. She is a member of the European Union Baroque Orchestra 2001, and has performed with them in France, Germany, England, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Hungary and China, under the baton of Roy Goodman, Andrew Manze, Alfredo Bernardini and Edward Higginbottom.
She has given recitals in Spain, France, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, Holland, Italy, Croatia, Andorra, Austria, Slovakia, Portugal, Bolivia, Panama, etc. In the past few years, she has been invited to take part in different juries. She is a busy soloist and collaborator with national and international ensembles and orchestras conducted by figures like Fabio Biondi, Giuliano Carmignola and Paul Goodwin, among others. She has appeared solo with the Orquesta de Cámara Española, Orquesta Sinfónica de Murcia, Solistas de la Orquesta Barroca de Sevilla and Grupo Enigma. She is a regular collaborator of Forma Antiqva.
Her concerts have been broadcast on RNE2, RTVE, BBC, RTL and the Czech Radio, and her recordings include music by A. Vivaldi (Warner 2004), D. Scarlatti and G. F. Haendel (MAA 2007), C. P. E. Bach (Arsis 2009) and L. Boccherini (with harpsichord player Alfonso Sebastián). Her first solo release “Chaconnerie” (IBS 2018), is a fascinating and unusual journey across the chaconnes for harpsichord from the 16th century to the present including Roberto Sierra’s Montuno, which was nominated for the 2018 Latin Grammy.
In 2000 she founded the early music ensemble La Tempestad (www.latempestad.es), with outstanding chamber records on Classicism, Haydn’s symphonies (MAA10 2012) and Mozart (Arsis 2013). She recently published “Iberian Harpsichord Concertos” (IBS Classical 2017) with concertos by M. Narro, J. Palomino and G. B. Pergolesi (first recording in the world) plus “Scarlatti: Veneza 1742” (2018). La Tempestad was awarded Best Conductor (Silvia Márquez) and the Best Classicism Ensemble at the I Premios GEMA (which she won again in 2018). She is also recipient of the Circuito Festclásica Música Antigua 2016.
Silvia Márquez studied in her native city with maestro José Luis González Uriol and later, with a grant from the Spanish Foreign Office and the Dutch Government, at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam and at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague, where she studied harpsichord (Jacques Ogg and Menno van Delft), organ (Jacques van Oortmerssen) and fortepiano (Stanley Hoogland). Particularly relevant in her organ training was Montserrat Torrent and at a wider scope, the advice from Gustav Leonhardt, Jesper Christensen, Jan Willen Jansen, Guy Bovet, Jon Laukvik, Christine Whiffen, Andrea Marcon, Patrick Cohen and Lars Ulrik Mortensen. She has done postgraduate courses at the C.S.I.C. (Musicology section) in Barcelona and at the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, while she was reading History of Art and Musicology at different universities (Zaragoza, Granada, UAM). She has a Master in Cultural Management with special distinction from the UOC (Barcelona).
Particularly committed to contemporary music, while in Holland she worked this repertoire with Dutch harpsichord player Annelie de Man, with whom she recorded music for two harpsichords by Roderik de Man (Attacca 1999). She has premiered works by different Spanish and foreign authors both to play solo and for chamber ensembles (she premiered in Spain Roberto Sierra’s Concierto Nocturnal). Her repertoire includes harpsichord concertos by F. Poulenc, F. Martin, B. Martinu and M. de Falla. By means of courses and concerts, her goal is to bring to light works of the 20th and 21st centuries and encourage the creation of new pieces. Her latest project, which focuses on 20th century Spanish music for harpsichord, earned her the Leonardo Grant in 2017 (Cultural Researchers and Creators) of the Fundación BBVA. Thanks to it she released her latest CD, “Herbania. 20th-Century Spanish Music for Harpsichord”, and the first world recording of Salvador Bacarisse’s Harpsichord Concerto will be out soon.
Silvia Márquez has given masterclasses in places like the Conservatorio Nacional de La Paz (Bolivia) and the Estonian Academy of Music and Theater (Tallinn, Estonia). She is regularly invited to give courses at different institutions (Conservatorio Superior de Música de Salamanca, summer courses of the Fundación Príncipe de Asturias in Oviedo, Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya, Real Conservatorio Superior de Música in Madrid, Academia de Música Antigua in Gijón). In 1999 she sat and won a competitive exam for the position of Harpsichord teacher at the Conservatorio Profesional de Música de Murcia. From September 2007 to September 2016 she was Professor of Harpsichord at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Aragón. She is currently professor of harpsichord at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid. But above all she understands music as an act of communication disregarding how old compositions are or the instrument used. Along with the beauty and personality of the sound of early keyboard instruments, “language” and “imagination” are two of her favourite words and are at the base of her performances. www.silviamarquez.com