The pianist Maria João Pires announced on September 6 the launch of the MJP Piano Academy, an online academy dedicated to piano teaching. The project offers bookings for online lessons and plans weekly workshops in groups of three to four students. The workshops will also be available to spectators and listeners through a subscription plan, which will include monthly online question and answer sessions with Maria João Pires herself. In the statement, the artist described teaching as "a form of dialogue through music, a 'giving and receiving', an exchange of impressions".
In parallel, the team is working on a plan to reopen the Belgais Center for the Arts, founded by the pianist in Escalos de Baixo, in the district of Castelo Branco, to offer events and in-person experiences. An online platform for Belgais will be created to share activities with people from all over the world and may host the academy itself. In-person masterclasses at the Belgais facility are also planned.
The announcement comes after Maria João Pires, 82, announced in November 2025 her retirement from the stage, after a health issue interrupted a European and Asian tour. In July, upon receiving an Honoris Causa doctorate from the University of Évora, she dismissed the possibility of returning to concerts but admitted she might return to studios to "make some recordings".
Born in Lisbon in 1944, she performed publicly for the first time at age four and won first prize at the international Beethoven competition in 1970. Throughout her career, she recorded for labels such as Denon, Erato and Deutsche Grammophon, received awards such as the Pessoa Prize in 1989 and the Praemium Imperiale in 2024, and received regular Grammy nominations.
