Carlos Urbaneja Silva graduated with honours from the Guildhall School of Music in London (1986) with professors Joan Havill and Adrian Thorne, among others. He began his piano studies in Caracas, his hometown, with Harriet Serr, under whose guide he began his concert activity. In 2007 he obtained a Fellowship from Trinity College of Music (London).
As a soloist, he has developed an important recital activity and has performed alongside the foremost orchestras of Venezuela with a repertoire that includes concerts by Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Ravel, Poulenc, Bartók, Prokofiev, and R. Strauss. His performance of the Concerto for the Left Hand of Ravel with the National Philharmonic Orchestra was described as “… of unparalleled firmness, powerful, scrutinizing and impetuous … an important interpretation of this difficult and unusual work”. (El Nacional, 20/04/94).
He has also excelled in the field of chamber music alongside prominent Venezuelan and international soloists. He performed with mezzo-soprano Isabel Palacios on the show “And it never was you” with music by Kurt Weill and “From Moulin Rouge to the Song of Paris” which included his arrangements for voice and piano of classics of the popular French repertoire (Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel, Charles Aznavour, and others).
He participated as a pianist/actor in the successful production of “Der Schauspieldirektor” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, directed by Giovanni Reali. He has performed as a soloist at various festivals in Venezuela, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Italy, and Great Britain. He has recorded two CDs, the first with works by Johannes Brahms, Leoš Janáček, Alberto Ginastera and Antonio Estévez, and the second and most recent with Venezuelan popular music in arrangements for piano made by himself and other important Venezuelan musicians.
Together with his concert activity, he conducts an outstanding teaching work at the Escuela de Música Mozarteum Caracas as the holder of the “Carmen Marcos” Youth Piano Chair and the “Carlos Duarte” Piano Chair for advanced students, many of whom have continued their studies at some of the leading conservatories and universities of Great Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Austria, Hungary, and the USA.