In 1992, Ms. Ugarte was awarded a scholarship by the New York University Alumnae Club and an award from Pi Lambda Theta, International Honor and Professional Association in Education. She completed her Associate Degree in Business at New York University, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude in 1994. She was awarded a scholarship by the New York Grand Opera Training Program in 1995 to continue her training in opera. In 1998, she was awarded the Spivey Foundation Scholarship and the American Business Women’s Association Scholarship to continue her music and vocal training at Clayton College and State University. She has participated in several master classes with renowned performers and vocal coaches, including Mr. Richard Miller, Director of the Oberlin Conservatory Vocal Arts Institute, and Metropolitan Opera’s Sherrill Milnes at the Summer Harrower Opera Workshop.
Ms. Ugarte has performed in South America with La Coral del Papa (His Holiness “John Paul II's” Choral), La Coral de Lima, Camerata Vocal Orfeo, and Compañía Municipal de Arte Lírico. She has been heard in New York and New Jersey, with New York University, The Juilliard School, the New York Grand Opera Training Program, and the New York Grand Opera Company. She has performed in Atlanta with reknown American composer Pauline Oliveros in a live web broadcast from Agnes Scott College, and has been heard at Spivey Hall in recital. In 1999, Ms. Ugarte created the role of Madame Kamecke in the world premier of Larry Corse’s “Frederick Hohernsollern,” and performed the role of Lilly in Corse’s “Elizabeth’s Flowers.”
Ms. Ugarte’s repertoire includes roles and arias from the standard (Italian, German, and French), Czech, and American opera, as well as Spanish zarzuela and recital material from the Italian, French, Spanish, German, English, Russian, Czech, Polish, Basque, Catalan, Latin American, and American vocal literature. She has also performed sacred music (Latin), musical theater, and classical-crossover, and is fluent in English, Spanish, Italian, and French. In 1998, she established The Ugarte Studio in Peachtree City, Georgia, where she teaches voice, piano, ear training, sight singing, music theory, composition, music technology, and Spanish.
As a voice over talent, Ms. Ugarte has been since 1997 the Spanish voice for the Texas distributor of the “New York Times,” the “Star Ledger,” “Statesman”, “Austin American Statesman,” “Express News,” the “San Antonio Express News,” “TV Now,” and “Scanner,” and for "The Reno Gazette." She has recorded in different Spanish accents (Castillian, various Central American and South American accents, as well as neutral), and in English and Italian for clients in the United States, Europe, South and Central America. She has dubbed for video production for companies as IBM. As a translation specialist, she has worked for the entertainment industry, on documentation and scripts, for Peruvian movie director “Lucho” Lloza Urquidi, best known in the United States for his work in the motion picture “Anaconda” starring Jennifer Lopez. She has translated legal documentation for the governments of Puerto Rico and Perú, as well as for several different industries. She is active as an English-Spanish/Spanish English interpreter in the Atlanta area and has been published by Peruvian newspaper, Diario “El Comercio,” the oldest and one of the most prominent journalsi n South America.
Since early in her career, Ms. Ugarte has been active in theater. She trained in Perú under the tutelage of that country’s first lady of the theater, Elvira Travesí. She has performed several roles from the English and Spanish literature, among others, Georgina in Lowell S. Swortzell’s “My American Cousin,” and as Karen Andre in Ann Rand’s “The Night of January Sixteenth.” Ms. Ugarte has also been involved in television, film, and professional modeling.
In 2000, she successfully presented “Maria Pia Ugarte Sings the Sounds of Christmas.” Following, Ms. Ugarte focused her efforts in the work for her single "Othello: Ave Maria" released in 2003 and appeared in Atlanta's Olympic Park with the "Festival Peachtree" and the "Lighting of the Peace Tree" at The Avenue in Peachtree City. In 2006 she founded "Voices" and now heads this performing arts organization as Artistic Director. During the winter of this same year, Ms. Ugarte returned to New York and joined NYGO for a program at Carnegie Hall featuring Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony." In 2007, she formed the female solo ensemble "Zaphyra" and this past fall, after a two-year sabbatical, Ms. Ugarte re-opened The Ugarte Studio, originally established in 1998. She has recently rejoined Diario "El Comercio" as freelance cultural correspondent and will be published starting this fall in Classical Singer, Tribal Art and Arts & Expressions in the United States.