Josu de Solaun Soto

Josu De Solaun (born October 27, 1981) is a Spanish classical music pianist and winner of the First Prize at the XIII George Enescu International Piano Competition, the First Prize at the I European Union Piano Competition held in Prague, and the First Grand Prize at the XV José Iturbi International Piano Competition. He is the first and only pianist from Spain to have ever been awarded the coveted prizes in the more than 30 and 50 years of their existence (the Iturbi and Enescu Competitions, founded in 1981 and 1958). He has resided in New York City since moving there in 1999, at the age of 17, and is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, from which he holds a Bachelor of Music, Master of Music and Doctorate in Musical Arts, and where his main teachers were Nina Svetlanova and Horacio Gutiérrez. In Spain, until the age of 17, his main teacher was Mexican pianist Maria Teresa Naranjo Ochoa.

He has performed as a soloist with orchestras such as the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra Filarmonica della Fenice, George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, Ploiești Philharmonic Orchestra, INSO - Lviv State Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra (formerly known as the Czech Radio Orchestra), Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra, RTVE Symphony Orchestra, Real Filharmonia de Galicia, Moldova State Philharmonic Orchestra, Banatul Philharmonic of Timișoara, Orquesta de Valencia, Orchestra Sinfonica della Provincia di Bari in Italy, Sioux City Symphony Orchestra, Monterey Symphony Orchestra of California, Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Euskadi, American Ballet Theatre Orchestra, and under conductors such as Justus Frantz, JoAnn Falletta, Constantine Orbelian, Ovidiu Bălan, Christian Badea, Horia Andreescu, Ryan Haskins, Theodore Kuchar, Paul Daniel, Yaron Traub, Ormsby Wilkins, Francesco Angelico, Alexis Soriano, Miguel Ángel Gómez Martínez, Ramón Tébar, Max Bragado-Darman, and Yuri Krasnapolsky.

He has recorded for Naxos Records.