Mario Andrea Balzi has lived and worked in Salzburg for ten years, where he has accompanied students in the masterclasses of Barbara Bonney, Mario Diaz, Christine-Marie Hoeller and Lavard Skou Larsen. He is the official pianist of the ‘Philharmonie Salzburg’ orchestra under the direction of Elisabeth Fuchs. In this collaboration, he was the first pianist to play Camille Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals in the Great Hall of the Mozarteum. Since March 2025, he has been working as an accompanist at the Mozarteum University in the Department of Elementary Music and Dance Pedagogy at the Orff Institute.
Mario Andrea Balzi was born in Barcelona, Spain. He began learning the piano at the age of six. He graduated from the music school ‘Conservatorio Superior de Barcelona’ in 1987. In 1988 he came to Brazil and attended the UNESP music school in Sao Paulo. His teachers were Beatriz Balzi and Pietro Maranca. In 1991, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in music. In 1993 he was accepted as a student of Sergio Perticaroli, winner of the Ferruccio Busoni International Competition, at the ‘Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia’ in Rome, Italy. He also studied there to attend perfection courses for chamber music with Mr Felix Ayo.
In 1994 he was awarded a scholarship to study at Arizona State University with the Brazilian pianist Caio Pagano. From 1988 to 1999, he also studied with other important names in international music, including Gilberto Tinetti in Sao Paulo, Guido Agosti, Michele Campanella, Joaquin Achucarro and Paul Badura Skoda at the ‘Accademia Chigiana’ in Siena, Italy. He has also played in masterclasses given by Jose Feghali in Sao Paulo and Jose Ramos Santana at Christ and St Stephen Church in New York City. He has won many piano competitions in Brazil, such as the 1988 competition in Araçatuba, the 1989 competition in Piracicaba, and the 1991 competition organised by the Symphony Orchestra of the State of Sao Paulo, where he played Liszt's Concerto No. 2.
Mario Andrea Balzi is also increasingly active in his career as a répétiteur. In 1995 he travelled with the soprano Dorothy Maddison through Arizona, Minnesota, New Jersey, USA, as well as to France and England. Together they recorded a CD of Christmas carols, including some previously unrecorded songs by Joaquin Nin. After meeting Dalton Baldwin at the Nice Summer Academy in France in 1997, he was offered a scholarship to study accompaniment at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey. There he studied with Dalton Baldwin and JJ Penna and graduated in 1999 with a master's degree in accompaniment. He has worked as an accompanist with Eckart Sellheim at Arizona State University, with Margo Garret at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and with Robin Stapleton in London, England.
As a member of the Westminster Symphonic Choir, he has performed Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Mendelssohn's Elijah, Durufle's Requiem, among others, with the New York Philharmonic and Kurt Masur at Avery Fischer Hall, with the St Luke Orchestra and Joseph Flummerfelt at Carnegie Hall, with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Wolfgang Sawallisch, and with the New Jersey Symphonic Orchestra and Zdeneck Macal in Newark. He has worked as a rehearsal piano player with the Princeton Girl Choir and the Westminster Conservatory Youth Chorale in Princeton. From 1998 to 2006, Mario Balzi worked as a piano teacher at the Universidade Livre de Música in Sao Paulo. Mario Andrea Balzi worked with the OSESP (Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra) as a guest musician and répétiteur. As a répétiteur and soloist, he has performed throughout the USA as well as in Spain, Italy, England, France and Brazil. During the 1999-2000 season he accompanied the Italian mezzo-soprano Fiorenza Cossotto at the Teatro Municipal (Municipal Theatre) Sao Paulo.
He is the official pianist of the ‘Philharmonie Salzburg’ orchestra under the direction of Elisabeth Fuchs. In this collaboration he played, among others, the Carnival of the Animals by Camlille Saint-Saens as the first pianist in the Great Hall Mozarteum Salzburg and at the Children's Festival 2014. Occasionally Lavard Skou-Larsen invites him to play with the ‘Salzburg Chamber Soloists’ and the ‘Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss’. In 2015, Mario played the 7th Bruckner Symphony as a version for chamber orchestra and four-hand piano in Neuss.
Mario Andrea Balzi is fluent in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, English and German.