Luísa Mitre is a pianist, accordionist, composer and arranger from Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. As a performer and recording artist of Brazilian instrumental music, she has formed many of her own projects and also enjoys collaborating with other artists. Mitre is a professor of piano and popular music at the Federal University of São João Del-Rei.
She holds Bachelor degrees in both Piano and Popular Music and has a Masters in Musical Performance from the Federal University of Minas Gerais. During her studies, she focused on researching the language of Brazilian popular music as it relates to the piano.
She has received awards such including the 18th BDMG Instrumental Award (2018), the MIMO Instrumental Award (2018), the Revelation Award at FIPS (the International Piano Solo Festival – 2018) and 1st OSMG Young Soloists Competition (2010).
In 2018, she released ‘Oferenda’ (Savassi Festival Records), which won the Marco Antônio Araújo Award 2019 for best authorial instrumental album of Minas Gerais. Under the same label, she released the album ‘Seiva’ in 2021 with Duo Mitre, a piano-and- vibraphone and percussion duo with her sister, Natália Mitre (also on staff at CCNE this year.) This album won the II Prêmio da Música Popular Mineira prize in 2022.
She is also a member of the internationally-touring choro group Toca de Tatu, and can be heard on three of their albums. Additionally, she performs in two duos: one with flutist Maiara Moraes (piano and flute), with whom she released the EP Ecoar (2023), and another with guitarist Lucas Telles (piano and guitar), with whom she released the EP Primavera(2023).
Here are Lucas and Luísa in that duo format in a program celebrating Brazil “National Choro Day”, which falls annualy on Pixinguinha’s birthday, April 23rd.
As mentioned above, Luísa plays in a duo with her sister Natália (also on staff at CCNE this year). In this video both sisters play two instruments, including Luísa on accordion.