Maria Canals was born 1914. She worked with teachers like her father Joaquim Canals, Lluís Millet i Richard Viñes, and was tutored by Genri Gagnebin in Geneva. At the age of fifteen she started her career as a concert pianist, first in Spain and then abroad. As a soloist she collaborated many times with important orchestras from Paris, Lausanne, San Remo, Barcelona etc. and under the baton of eminent directors like Brün, Maurice Le Roux, Jacques Bovy, Desarzens, Eduard Toldrà or Pich Santasusana. Premiers of works by some of the most important Catalan composers of the first halft of the 20th century stand out in her wide reperoire, especially those by Manuel Blancafort, with whom she had a very intense musical as well as personal relationship. Maria Canals also had a disposition toward French music.
Maria Canals, together with her husband Rossend Llates, founded Ars Nova Music Academy in Barcelona in 1950. This Academy became one of the most important music schools in Barcelona. As a teacher, Maria Canals brought up brilliant students who won important awards in different international competitions and some of them developed important international careers as soloists. In 1950 Maria Canals founded the International Music Competition Maria Canals Barcelona, the most important music competition in Spain. Under with her personal endeavor, as well as through the support of the Catalan civil society, the World Federation of International Music Competitions (WFIMC) and especially its president and founder Henri Gagnebin throughout the years, the competition became one of the most prestigious ones around the world.
Maria Canals was invited to be part of various the juries in very important international competitions. Among others, she was regular member of juries in competitions in Munich, Geneva, Vercelli, Marguerite Long in Paris, Paris (Guilde Française des Artistes Solistes), Monza, Versailles (Cziffra), Senigallia i Seregno (Pozzoli) and was guest of honor in international competitions Frederic Chopin in Warsaw and Van Cliburn in Fort Worth. Maria Canals received the “Stella della Solidarità Italiana” granted by the President of the Republic of Italy in 1965 and in 1985 she was given the title of “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts des Lettres” by the French Minister of Culture and Communication. In 1990 she was awarded the Sant Jordi Cross by the Government of Catalonia and the same year the Minister of Culture granted her the silver “Medalla al Merito en Bellas Artes”.
In 1994 the Barcelona City Council awarded her with the “Medalla d’Or al Mèrit Artístic”. Maria Canals published “A life in music”, “Forty years of International Music Competition, some memories” and wrote with her husband and writer Rossend Llates “Beethoven”.
