Biography

Pianist, performer and artistic researcher based in Strasbourg, Carolina Santiago is a concert pianist of contemporary and classical music working as a soloist and in chamber ensembles with an international trajectory.

Carolina Santiago is the pianist of Ensemble Linea, Ensemble L’Imaginaire, Barcelona Modern Ensemble and Semblance, and is founder of their chamber music projects Syntagma Piano Duo, Regrat Duo and Duo Ekriktiko. She has recorded for Radio France with Ensemble Linea and for IRCAM as a soloist, and has worked hand in hand with composers such as Simon Steen-Andersen, Francesco Filidei, Claudia Scroccaro or Alberto Posadas, among others.

Santiago has performed at festivals such as Zyklus Nouvelles Aventures (Wiener Konzerthaus, Austria), Royaumont Festival (France), New Orleans NienteForte Festival (USA), Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt (Germany), Svensk Musikvar (Sweden), etcetera. She has been artist-in-residence at Royaumont, GRAME CNDM, and has performed with the OBC Barcelona Symphony Orchestra.

Carolina Santiago is currently pursuing a PhD in Artistic Research in Music at the University of Aveiro (Portugal) with Luca Chiantore, researching an experimental interpretation of Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux. Previously, she studied the European Master in Contemporary Music CoPeCo (2020-22) at EMTA Tallinn, KMH Stockholm, CNSMD Lyon and HfMT Hamburg, and previously at the Conservatori del Liceu (Barcelona) the Master with the scholarship of excellence Fundació Liceu and Superior degree in Piano Performance with Albert Attenelle.

Carolina Santiago has received numerous awards such as the Cordoba Corhyund Piano Prize, II Prize of the Piano Meeting Ourense Festival, scholarship from the Fundació Liceu, BPA Yamaha scholarship and three scholarships from the Spanish Performers Association AIE. Among the pianists who most influenced her training are Catherine Ordronneau, Vesko Stambolov, Albert Attenelle, Josep Colom and Pilar Valero.

Carolina Santiago’s artistic profile is marked by a selection of unconventional repertoire, without renouncing her traditional classical training but also as an eclectic artist of current avant-garde music. Her work focuses on blurring the creative boundaries between performer and composer, rethinking traditional hierarchies, and investigating the musical performer as an embodied mind.