Iris Urgelles is a profesional pianist classically trained, a piano pedagogue, a collaborative pianist and a composer.

She was born and raised in an eastern city of Cuba and began studying piano at an early age, getting into a professional music school and continuing her musical education through college at the University of the Arts in Havana, Cuba.

She graduated Cum Laude with honors from Temple University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Piano Performance and Piano Pedagogy. She also holds Masters Degrees in Piano Performance, and Piano Accompaniment and Chamber Music all from Temple University. Under the guidance of Harvey Wedeen and Lambert Orkis, Iris earned several scholarships and awards: The James H. and Ethel L. M. Beach Book Award, Third Prize Winner in the Pi Kappa Lambda Competition, and the Jacobs Music Company Steinway Award for outstanding graduating pianist in 2009.  She was selected by Temple University to be included in the 2008 Edition of Who's Who Among Students in American’s Universities and Colleges and was also selected for induction into the prestigious Pi Kappa Lambda National Music Honor Society for Undergraduate and Graduate Students at Temple University.  She served as a piano accompanist to the Opera Department, The Women’s Choir, Concert Choir, Jeffery Solow’s Cello Studio, Eric Owens’s Voice Studio and Dr. Christine Anderson’s Voice Studio at Temple University. She completed a Master Degree in Piano Pedagogy from West Chester University, where she was awarded the Connie Murray Pedagogy Award and was featured in the “Fig” Magazine as a Master Student from West Chester University.

 In 2015, she co-founded the Musicalia Ensemble, a piano trio that performed at Carnegie Hall in Spring 2017 as a first-prize winner in the Romantic Music International Competition.  They performed as guest artists for the International Triumph Piano Festival at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia in September 2017, 2018 and 2023.

Iris is an active member of the Music Teacher National Association, the Pennsylvania Music Teacher Association, the Main Line Music Teacher Association and the Philadelphia Music Teacher Association. 

Her students have won local Festivals and National e International Competitions. They have also performed at West Chester University, Temple University, Penn State University, the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in New York; and Cambridge University in United Kingdom. Four of her students were selected to be featured on the Cunningham Piano TV Show in the Spring of 2018. Recently, three of her students won First Prizes and an Honorable Mention at the 2024 TriCounty Youth Festival.

As a composer, Iris won Third Prize and Second Prize at the 2018 and 2019 Golden Key International Piano Composition Competition. She performed her compositions in August 2018 and 2019 at the festival’s gala Concert at the Ehrbar Hall, Prayner Conservatory in Vienna. Iris’ composition “At Noon” was selected as one of the top nine finalist in the 10th Piano Composition Competition Fidelio in Madrid, Spain in the Tonal Classical, Romantic and Melodic Category, December 2019. In March 2022, Iris’ composition “Alas” was premiere as one of the winners of Women in Music- Columbus at the Otterbein University in Ohio.