(Piano, Bolivia)

 Sergio Escalera began his musical studies at the National Conservatory of Music in La Paz city, at the age of six. In 2008, he was awarded a full scholarship to attend the United World College of the Adriatic in Duino, Italy, and to be a Music Scholar at the “Scuola Superiore Internazionale di Musica da Camera del Trio di Trieste”. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree from The Boston Conservatory where he was a full scholarship student of Michael Lewin. His principal piano teachers also include Nadia Lapitch and Igor Cognolato. His chamber music teachers in Italy were Dario De Rosa, Renato Zanettovich and others.
He was a featured soloist with many orchestras around the world such as the Franz Liszt Academy Orchestra, the Youth Orchestra of Bahia-Brazil, the Bolivia Clásica Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra of Entre Rios, Tucuman Symphony Orchestra, and the OSUL Orchestra of Lausanne, under conductors such as Freddy Terrazas, Ricardo Castro, Willem Stam, Sergei Babayan, Luis Gorelik, and Hervé Klopfenstein, among others.
Escalera was top-prize winner at numerous international piano competitions including: First Prize and Special Mention at the “XXI Claudio Arrau International Piano Competition” in Quilpué, Chile; First Absolute Prize and “Nives Caetani Buzzai Prize” at the “IV Ars Nova International Music Competition” in Trieste, Italy; top prize at the Piano Honors Competition of the Boston Conservatory, among other accomplishments.
Having toured Mexico and Chile with the Youth Orchestra of the Americas, he has been a regular guest for concerts at grass-roots initiatives in Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Turkey, and Iraq, among other countries. Festival appearances include: Contemporary Music Festival in Cochabamba, V Encuentro de Jóvenes Talentos in Chile, MusicFest Perugia in Italy, FEMUSC in Brazil, Moritzburg Festival in Germany, Amed Festival of Turkey, Festival International de Musiques Sacrées in Switzerland, Concert Series at the birthplace of Frédéric Chopin in Poland, and the Progetto Martha Argerich, among others. His chamber music collaborators include Paul Merkelo, Principal Trumpet of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra; Philip Myers, Principal Horn of the New York Philharmonic; Brusk Zanganeh, Concertmaster of the Norrbotten Orchestra of Sweden, violinist Géza Hosszu-Legocky, pianist/conductor Sergei Babayan, and his current teacher and mentor, Brazilian pianist and conductor Ricardo Castro. He is currently the Musician in Residence of the UWC Dilijan International School in Armenia, where he teaches a pre-professional class of students from all around the world, and concertizes in the region of the Caucasus.