Maestro Hector Olivera is a passionate, gifted, and unique musician, whose personal interpretations of both classical and popular music have amazed and delighted audiences around the world.
‘The Times Reporter’, describes an evening with Hector Olivera as: “An event, a happening, a joyful celebration of the sheer power and pressure that a true virtuoso like Hector Olivera can unleash in a concert hall.”
Born in Buenos Aires, Mr. Olivera’s first teacher (who was his father) encouraged him to begin playing the pipe organ when he was three. Two years later, he was appointed organist of the Church of the Immaculate Conception. At six, he entered the Buenos Aires Conservatory to study harmony, counterpoint and fugue. Beginning to learn the art of improvisation there, by nine, he had composed a suite for oboe and string orchestra, which was performed by the Buenos Aires Symphony Orchestra.
At age twelve, Mr. Olivera entered the University of Buenos Aires where he studied with Hector Zeoli and Juan Francisco Giacobbe. By eighteen, he had performed more than three hundred concerts throughout Latin America, appearing frequently on Argentinean radio and television. During this time, he also served for three years as the senior improvisational accompanist for the Collegium Musicum in Buenos Aires, vastly increasing his prodigious improvisational talent.
In 1965, New York’s prestigious Juilliard School of Music offered him a scholarship. He immediately moved to the United States to study with Vernon de Tar and Bronson Reagan. Three years later, Mr. Olivera won the National Improvisation Contest sponsored by the American Guild of Organists, thereby launching his outstanding professional concert career.
Besides playing many concerts in the United States, Mr. Olivera has performed in Australia, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Wales, Scotland, Holland, Italy, Japan, Canada, Mexico, China, Argentina, Belgium, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Spain, Austria, Norway and Switzerland.
Prestigious venues have included the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, Carnegie Hall in New York, Royal Albert Hall in London, Spivey Hall in Atlanta, Constitution Hall in Washington D.C, the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Balboa Park in San Diego, Myerson Concert Hall in Dallas, Verizon Hall in Philadelphia and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.
In 1988, after years of performing in the United States, Maestro Olivera was invited to play once again in Argentina. Upon arriving, he was welcomed as a national hero with ‘Standing Room Only’ concerts attended by celebrities and heads of state, as well as featured on national radio and television shows.