Maria Joao Pires, Her first recital was at age five, and at age seven she was already playing Mozart Piano Concertos publicly. Two years later, she received Portugal's top prize for young musicians. In the following years, she studied with Professor Campos Coelho at the Lisbon Conservatory, taking courses in composition, theory, and history of music. She continued her studies in Germany, first in the Musikakademie of Munich with Rosl Schmidt and then in Hanover with Karl Engel.