Alberto Portugheis

Dr. David McAughtry reviewed lunchtime concert, at St James's Piccadilly, in London on July 27, 2011, saying, "Portugheis, at 70 is a serious man—a piano virtuoso, teacher, and tireless antiwar campaigner, a Nobel peace prize nominee. He played "Claire de Lune" with huge tenderness as the expression of a lifetime of experience, not all of it good. I found it inexpressibly moving. I could have died then, and felt I understood something, and at the end of the piece my eyes were filled with tears. The pianist sat for a few seconds, shook his head slightly, and got up to receive the applause. I wondered as he stood, if he really had the ability to evoke great emotions in his listeners, while being dispassionate himself. He sat down again, and as he wiped his eyes before starting the next piece, I realized that he had been crying too".

Musical Opinion reviewed his 70th Birthday concert, speaking of "Portugheis' searching and highly characterised performance, rife with mercurial shifts of mood". The reviewer comments that "Portugheis has a strong affinity for the Romantics" while pointing out that he is "best known for his championing of Latin American composers like Ginestera and recent contemporary figures". On July 4, 2010, for instance, Portugheis had demonstrated his "championing of Latin American Music" in an acclaimed concert, where Martha Argerich joined him at the King's Place, London. There an array of world class musicians from Britain, America, Hungary, Romania, Israel and Lebanon paid tribute to Argentina and its music. Most of the programme consisted of works with a strong Argentine flavour.

Howard Smith records, in Music Vision Daily, May 2009:

Alberto Portugheis was the only Europe-based pianist to play in the concert "Homage to V Scaramuzza" at the Colon Theatre on August 14, 2002. He features in a film on DVD, The Work of the Master (Scaramuzza's teaching life) directed by Nicolás Borenstein, to be released in 2011.

Applauding Portugheis in Recital at a December 31, 2002 Concert of "Latin American Blend", Miller commented that his playing demonstrated "especial crystalline articulation and beautifully supple phrasing", adding that "in Portugheis's hands, the music overflowed with vitality, its myriad of colours, rhythmic lilt and syncopated energy radiating a Latin American blend of joy and longing."

Reviewing a 2000 recital at the Regent Hall, Malcolm Miller wrote of Portugheis' "arresting and resonant tone", describing it as being "somewhat reminiscent of the school of Myra Hess or DinuLipati".

In 1997, Alberto Portugheis co-founded the Iberian & Latin American Music Society (ILAMS) and was its chairman for ten years, though he has now stepped down from the chair and is no longer directly associated with ILAMS. ILAMS was established in London in 1998 with the aim to promote the music of Spain, Portugal and the whole of Latin America. The Society's aim is to raise awareness of the cultures involved, in particular, their classical repertoires with a variety of activities every year.

Since his early childhood, Portugheis showed a talent for, and a great interest in music. By the age of three, he was picking out instrumental, vocal and orchestral music on the piano and by six and a half, he had learned to read music. He told Tim Stein in a 1995 interview for Classical Piano of the time his father sold some chairs to a piano teacher and how he asked her if he could try out her piano, saying, 'She became my first teacher, until I was 13, when she thought that she had taught me everything she knew.'

For many years, this multi-faceted man practised his passion for cooking, becoming not only the Head-Chef of various restaurants, but also presenting international gastronomic festivals. Boardoom magazine, records him as a "leading Chef" involved in a two-week festival of charcuterie at the Manor Gate restaurant in London. Document of an article in the local Kensington paper of the day, records that he has become the chef of the Majestic Hotel in Cromwell Road and that he had moved there from the John Howard Hotel in Queensgate, London An interview in CD Classics, 1989, also records this move, saying, that Portugheis was torn between the worlds of music and cooking.

In May 1982, a review by Hector Coda, in La Nación, writes:

After winning first prize at the Geneva Concours de Virtuosité in June 1964, Portugheis embarked upon an international career, visiting nearly 50 countries, performing in solo and chamber music concerts as well as being a soloist with many international orchestras, including the Royal Philharmonic, London Symphony, London Mozart Players, English Chamber, Suisse Romande, Lausanne Chamber, Paris and Israel Sinfoniettas, Filarmónica de Buenos Aires, Nacional de Argentina, and Sofia Philharmonic, among others. Portugheis returns regularly to Argentina, where in 2008 he performed Beethoven's Piano Concerto No3. at the Usuahia International Music Festival under the baton of Maestro Jorge Uliarte with Concertmaster Götz Bernau.

Alberto Portugheis (born January 1, 1941, in La Plata, Argentina) is an Argentine pianist, born to parents of Russian and Romanian descent. He is an international pianist and teacher, now living in London. After winning first prize at the Geneva Concours de Virtuosité, Portugheis embarked on an international career, visiting almost 50 countries across the world. His recordings include masterpieces from a repertoire ranging from the Baroque to contemporary. He played his 70th birthday concert in London in January 2011, following his birthday on December 31.

Enthusiasm for music has led Portugheis to a dedicated study of the piano and his life as an international concert pianist, while the horrors experienced by his family led to his work for peace. He tells in his book, Dear Ahed: the Game of War and a Path to Peace that his family "escaped from Eastern Europe between 1935 and 1940" and that not one day of his childhood passed without hearing of the horrors they experienced. Now, in addition to his career on the concert platform, he works for peace.