Josefina Urraca
Josefina Urraca is a Spanish pianist and co-director of CreArtBox and of Festival ADAR. She studied with Dmitri Bashkirov at the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid, and her playing has been praised by Mundo Clásico for its blend of "introspection and musical abandon". She has performed at the Salle Cortot in Paris, the Sony Auditorium in Madrid, and Carnegie Hall in New York, and her work has been supported by the New York State Council on the Arts and the Queens Council on the Arts.
Josefina Urraca is a Spanish pianist and co-director of CreArtBox and of Festival ADAR. Her playing has been praised by Mundo Clásico for its blend of "introspection and musical abandon" - a balance between precision and emotional risk that defines her work both on stage and behind it. She has performed at the Salle Cortot in Paris, the Collège d'Espagne at the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, the Sony Auditorium in Madrid, and Carnegie Hall in New York, and her work has reached wider audiences through Spanish television and radio.
She trained at the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid, where she studied with Dmitri Bashkirov, and also at the Salamanca Conservatory, the École Normale de Musique "Alfred Cortot" in Paris, and the Manhattan School of Music in New York. She has been recognized in competitions including INJUVE, the Ciudad de Carlet International Competition, and the Savvy Musicians in Action International Competition, and her work has received support from the New York State Council on the Arts, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, the Queens Council on the Arts, and the Government of Asturias.
In 2013, alongside flutist Guillermo Laporta, she co-founded CreArtBox, and since 2021 the two have co-directed Festival ADAR in rural Asturias, bringing concerts, commissions, artist talks, and site-specific installations to small villages.
Josefina Urraca is a Spanish pianist and co-director of CreArtBox and of Festival ADAR. Her playing has been praised by Mundo Clásico for its blend of "introspection and musical abandon" - a balance between precision and emotional risk that defines her work both on stage and behind it.
She has performed at the Salle Cortot in Paris, the Collège d'Espagne at the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, the Sony Auditorium in Madrid, Carnegie Hall in New York, among others. Her work has also reached wider audiences through appearances on Spanish television and radio.
In 2013, alongside flutist Guillermo Laporta, she co-founded CreArtBox, a New York-based chamber music ensemble that fuses live performance with visual art, projection, and theatrical staging. Over the past decade, she has led its artistic direction - designing programs, commissioning new work, and building collaborations with composers and visual artists. The ensemble has been recognized by The New Yorker as one of its top picks for art and music, and by Time Out New York as "a group dedicated to multidisciplinary events."
Since 2021, together with Laporta, she has co-directed Festival ADAR, a traveling arts festival in rural Asturias that weaves classical concerts, commissioned works, artist talks, and site-specific installations into the landscape of small villages. The festival has become a model for how contemporary art can revitalize rural heritage.
She trained at the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid, where she studied with Dmitri Bashkirov, and her training also took shape across the Salamanca Conservatory, the University of Alcalá de Henares in Madrid, the École Normale de Musique "Alfred Cortot" in Paris, and the Manhattan School of Music in New York. Her other teachers include Maria João Pires, Ferenc Rados, Patrín García-Barredo, Josep Colom, Claudio Martínez-Mehner, Kennedy Moretti, Eldar Nebolsin, Marc Silverman, Márta Gulyás and Frank Wibaut.
Over fifteen years, her work has received support from institutions including the New York State Council on the Arts, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, the Amphion Foundation, the Copland Foundation, and the Alice M. Ditson Fund, the Government of Asturias, the Queens Council on the Arts, the Spanish Embassy, Caja Madrid, the Luis Galvé Foundation, the Albéniz Foundation, and Caja Rural. She has been recognized in competitions including the Savvy Musicians in Action International Competition, INJUVE, Montehermoso Contemporary Creation, the Ciudad de Carlet International Competition, and the Rotary Club awards.
Born into a family of professional musicians in Palencia, she divides her life between New York and Leiguarda, a small village in Asturias, where she lives with her husband Guillermo and their son and daughter Eliot and Emilia.
These biographies are published as the artist wrote them and are not to be altered. For another version, or for a longer one, write to Josefina directly: josefinaurraca.com.