Carlos Varela is one of the leading Venezuelan pianists of his generation. He won his first national piano competition at age 11 in Caracas, Venezuela, and since then, he has been performing and competing uninterruptedly across his country and abroad. He has won and received multiple prizes, awards and scholarships throughout his career, including the 2nd prize at the II Yamaha National Competition in Venezuela and an Honorific Mention at the III Musicalia Competition in Cuba. He made his debut as a soloist when he was 12 years old, and since then, he has performed with youth and professional orchestras in Venezuela and Costa Rica. After completing his bachelor’s degree at the Universidad Nacional Experimental de las Artes in 2011 in Venezuela, he joined the piano faculty of the Simón Bolívar Conservatory of Music where he taught piano for four years. In 2017, he won a graduate assistantship at the University of Southern Mississippi to pursuit a Master´s degree in piano performance. There he won the 1st prize at the Mississippi Music Teacher Association Competition and completed the program successfully. In pursuit of his full development as a performer and teacher, he joined the doctoral program at the University of Georgia in 2019. There he studied piano with Dr. Evgeny Rivkin and won a full Teaching Assistantship. During his time at UGA, he also won the Robert G. Edge Piano Award, which led him to make his debut in NYC in 2020 at the Steinway Hall. In 2022, he received his doctoral degree in piano performance. Dr. Varela currently teaches piano at UGA´s Community Music School and is also an active solo performer and collaborative pianist.
You can find Carlos’s 2024 Summer Music Competition piano performance here.
You can find Carlos’s 2024 Contemporary Music Competition piano performance here.