Characterized by their creative programming and the drive and lyricism in their music making, Duo Powers-de la Torre has appeared on a variety of North American and European stages. Some of the festivals and concert series on which they have taken part include Classical Concerts at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, California; El Arte del piano at Mexico City’s Palace of Fine Arts; Passion Piano at the Bibliothèque de Dinan in France; Instituto Cervantes in Vienna; the International Festival of Spanish Keyboard Music in Almería; and the Viernes de Musikeon concert series in Valencia, Spain, Encuentro de pianistas Costa Rica, and the Bainbridge Island Symphony Orchestra in their home state of Washington. The duo was a finalist at the United States International Duo Piano Competition in Colorado Springs and obtained a Silver Award at the first international competition of the Carles & Sofía Foundation of Spain. They have been heard live on Seattle’s Classical KING and Mexico City’s Opus 94 radio stations.  

Often exploring lesser-known sides of the two-piano and four-hands repertoire, the duo also collaborates with living composers commissioning and premiering works by composers from throughout the Americas including Juan Pablo Contreras, Leonardo Coral, Moisès Bertran and Miguel del Aguila, with whom they have forged an especially close relationship culminating in their debut album Blue Samba on the Odradek label.

Lark Powers, a California native, and Ricardo de la Torre, a Mexico City native, are in demand as performers and pedagogues and are frequently invited to sit on competition juries in the American Pacific Northwest region. Jointly and individually, they have presented at numerous local, regional, national, and international conferences. They are on faculty at Pacific Lutheran University and the Community Music Program at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington.

Partners in music as well as in life, they individually hold degrees from the University of the Pacific, Escuela Superior de Música (Mexico City), Conservatoire municipal Hector Berlioz in Paris, the Peabody Institute, Indiana University, and the University of Colorado Boulder, where they met during their doctoral studies. As a duo, they have been coached by pianists Albert Atenelle, David Korevaar, and Andrew Cooperstock.