TAPESTRY OF UNCERTAINTIES
Kathleen Balfe, cello Carmen Hernández, pre-recorded poetry reading
PROGRAM
Los tiempos del porvenir (2020) María José Arenas Martín (1983)
Stunt Fall V (2020) María del Pilar Miralles Castillo (1997)
Policronías de las sibilas (2020) Beatriz Arzamendi (1961)
La senda (2020) Consuelo Díez (1958)
Funambudumbre: cuando todo se apaga (2020) Dolores Serrano Cueto (1967)
Viajar es lo que importa (2020) Anna Bofill Levi (1944)
Vivir en Aporesis (... o Turbulencias...) (2020) Ana Teruel Medina (1981)
Veritas Vincit (2020) Reyes Oteo (1982)
Questo tremito, questo vacillamento (2020) María del Carmen Asenjo-Marrodán (1978)
Un mundo sin bocas y con olor a desinfectante (2020) Diana Pérez Custodio (1970)
Tapestry of uncertainties is an intimate and reflective mixed media performance created by cellist Kathleen Balfe in collaboration with ten composers who participated in the 2020 Women Composers Workshop of the Spanish Music Festival of Cadiz, a coastal town in southern Spain.
Each composition was originally inspired by a poem that will be recited in either Spanish or Italian in order to enjoy the rich expressiveness of the poet’s mother tongue.* The composition following each poem is the composers’ transformation of the poem’s essence into sound. Some of these unique solo cello soundscapes also include an electroacoustic accompaniment.
Diversity is one of the cornerstones of this project. Tapestry of uncertainties features a collection of texts and works created by remarkable women who are still not widely known or celebrated in the world of composition.
The concept of uncertainty is the common thread woven through each poem and composition, and when these pieces are experienced as a whole, a complex pattern of doubt and hesitation is created. In these times, uncertainty is the weft that binds together not only this concert, but the whole complex tapestry of our own lives.
*English translations of the poems are provided in these program notes.
PROGRAM NOTES
Los tiempos del porvenir by María José Arenas Martín based on Cuando no había futuro , a poem by Nieves Vázquez Recio
Translation:
Cuando no había futuro When there was no future aprendimos a vivir en el presente simple, we learned to live in the simple present a veces era continuo, rara vez fue perfecto. sometimes continuous, rarely perfect. Aquellos días variábamos el rumbo de la conjugación In those days we would change the course of the conjugation como niños perdidos en viejos manuales de gramática like children lost in old grammar books -esa lista insensata de palabras en negro, – that senseless list of words in black, rojas de sangre las terminaciones-. with blood-red endings. Entonces nos saltamos los tiempos del porvenir. Back then we would skip over the future tenses. El destino, de cara a la pared, aguardaba el más leve movimiento Fate, facing the wall, was waiting for the slightest movement para señalarnos con su dedo de pollo inglés fatídico. to catch us statues with its fateful finger. Allí nos tuvo, en el gélido patio de rodillas gastadas, There it had us, on the chilly patio with our worn-out knees, donde los escolares caen y vuelven a caer sobre sus postillas. where school children fall on their scabs again and again. Allí estuvimos, quietos en la casilla de la espera, There we were, standing at square one, jugando a la ruleta rusa de la continuación. playing the Russian roulette of continuation.
“Los tiempos del porvenir” (“The future tenses” or “The future times”) is created from musical components that pose a great technical challenge to the performer. The composition is based on a formal, hermeneutic, prosodic and grammatical reconstruction of the elements that make up the poem. Thus, it is harsh, rough and may be difficult to listen to, reflecting the rawness of the times we live in, where uncertainty is our only lifeline amid the chaos.
Stunt Fall V by María del Pilar Miralles Castillo In Memoriam Galina Ustvolskaya based on a poem by Ricardo Dávila
Translation:
¿Cuántos insomnios me hacen falta para How many sleepless nights will I need
derrumbar el muro de la duda? to topple the wall of doubt?
¿Cuántas sombras? ¿Cuántas luchas? How many shadows? How many struggles?
Hoy tengo que saber -antes que despiertes- si Today I must know –before you wake– whether
la mañana es la que alumbra, it is the morning that brings light,
o si eres tú la que alumbra la mañana. or you who brings light to the morning.
Stunt Fall is the name of a famous roller coaster in the Spanish capital, Madrid. It was the inspiration behind a piece written for solo alto saxophone, and later became the name of a collection of pieces for solo instruments. This collection features compositions for alto saxophone, accordion, horn, bass clarinet, cello and flute, aiming to explore the language of each particular instrument.
This five-minute piece is Pilar Miralles’ tribute to Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006). Galina Ustvolskaya was one of the most exceptional composers of the Soviet generation that composed between the 1920s and 1990s. She developed a unique language that had no link to any existing or pre-existing musical idioms. Pilar Miralles was inspired by Ustvolskaya’s sense of aesthetic and the musical experience that she creates using a unique expressivity. Her music is raw, dry, harsh and strong, as well as spiritual and contemplative at the same time. This is represented by the systematic repetition of motifs throughout the first section of the piece, the extreme force required in some passages to achieve overpressure and distortion, and the contemplative feeling conveyed at other times.
Policronías de las sibilas by Beatriz Arzamendi based on a poem by María Rosal
Translation:
Descifrar los augurios Deciphering the auguries
de la espiral perdida. of the lost spiral.
Sumergirme en la entraña I dive into the bowels
del azar y sus lizas. of fate and its threads.
Interpretar prodigios, Interpreting omens,
inciertas letanías. uncertain litanies.
Alimentar la llama Fanning the secret
secreta de la vida... flame of life…
Ese es mi oficio. Al fin, That is my profession. Ultimately,
sibila día a día. a sibyl day by day.
This work is based on the figures of the sibyls, who were prophetesses in ancient Greek and Roman mythology. Since ancient times, legends tell of various sibyls, of which a dozen are currently recognized. They possessed the ability to unravel the future and foretell all kinds of events, providing support in the face of uncertainty. Their prestige and the respect society had for these female figures’ intelligence is an exception for that era and subsequent times.
“Policronías de las sibilas” (“Polychronies of the sibyls”) is constructed on the basis of different sequences – what appears can disappear in an instant, with changes of speed, diverse states and emotions, and sudden, radical mutations in which the element of surprise plays an important role. These elements travel from one section of the music to another, bringing multiple time layers into the score.
La senda by Consuelo Díez based on the poem La senda , by Antonio Martín-Carrilllo Domínguez
Translation:
Sopla un viento muy frío, A chilly wind blows
y la soledad acecha and loneliness lurks
al fondo del camino. at the end of the road.
De nada vale There is no sense
comenzar a caminar in starting to walk
si no sabes a dónde vas. if you don’t know where to go.
De nada vale There is no sense
andar y andar in walking and walking
sin rumbo establecido. without a known course.
Sigue la senda del amor, Follow the path of love,
recorre el camino, walk the road,
busca tu destino. seek your goal.
“La senda” (“The path” or “The trail”) is inspired by a poem of the same title by Spanish author Antonio Martín-Carrillo. The composition is based on a popular melody that emerges little by little, gradually becoming more concrete and specific, until it finally bursts out completely, full of energy.
This piece brings a positive note in this troubled, difficult and strange period we are living through due to the pandemic, full of uncertainties, doubts and restrictions on our usual way of life. It is a breath of fresh air in the midst of this atypical situation that came about so unexpectedly, and that we have had to get used to with no choice in the matter.
Funambudumbre: cuando todo se apaga by Dolores Serrano Cueto based on Funambulismo , a poem by Antonio Serrano Cueto
Translation:
La vida va tensando sus alambres Life keeps tensing the wire
bajo los pies hendidos del funámbulo. under the cracked feet of the tightrope walker.
Cuando en el menoscabo de la luz When the light begins to dim,
se apagan los contornos de las cosas the outlines of things fade
y los soles someten sus cristales and the suns surrender their crystals
a la gris mordedura de la tarde, to the grey maw of evening,
no bastan la pericia ni la pértiga, neither skill nor pole will be enough,
no la senda volátil del cordel. nor the volatile path over the cord.
La región vespertina sólo atiende The vespertine region only pays heed
a grávidas razones. to grave reasons.
¿Qué acrobacia What acrobatics
prosperaría sobre el curvo signo would carry them over the curve
de la interrogación? of the question mark?
“The sounds intrinsically linked to the sea fascinate me: the squawking of seagulls, the ship sirens, the swell of the waves. It’s not the first time I have wanted to reflect my affinity to these sounds in my compositions, such as in ‘La travesía – Sinfonía inacabada’ (‘The voyage – Unfinished symphony’).
In ‘Funambudumbre,’ the sounds of the horns and sirens of tugboats and ships docked in the port seem to be real, just as they sounded in April during the lockdown. It was a synchrony of so much sound that it kept ringing afterwards in the silence. I had never heard them like that. I had never cried when hearing the sirens.
That singular moment became the sound base for this composition, the sound of uncertainty and solidarity at the same time – the sound of a tightrope that is placed uninvited under our feet while at the same time revealing a net that can catch us.
Another of the compositional pillars of this piece is the poem ‘Funambulismo,’ by Antonio Serrano, published in the collection of poems No quieras ver el páramo (Seville, 2010), and the fact is that we were all tightrope walkers during those long days. To be a tightrope walker is to live in the uncertainty of balance or to experience uncertainty in balance. This, for me, is one of the messages of the poem, which I used to steer my work. At the end, the sounds of an early morning in lockdown emerge: a symbol of life.
The title is a combination of the Spanish words funambulismo (tightrope walking or funambulism) and incertidumbre (uncertainty).” "Le doute, morne oiseau, nous frappe de son aile..." Arthur Rimbaud
Viajar es lo que importa by Anna Bofill Levi based on Al paso de los años , a poem by María Cinta Montagut
Translation:
Al paso de los años With the passing of the years
he aprendido a vivir sin dogmas, I have learned to live without dogmas,
a ignorar la posesión de la verdad, to ignore the truth holders,
la fe del converso, the faith of the convert,
las grandes palabras the grand words
que hacen pequeño el mundo, that make the world small,
la obediencia ciega, blind obedience,
la justicia de las injusticias. the justice of injustices.
Al paso de los años With the passing of the years
viajar es lo que importa traveling is what matters
y estar de pie and facing the uncertainty of tomorrow
frente a lo incierto de mañana. on our feet.
“I based ‘Viajar es lo que importa’ (‘Traveling is what matters’) on this poem by Maria Cinta Montagut, structuring the piece into twelve fragments corresponding to the number of lines in the poem and with a duration proportional to the length of each line.
The electroacoustic material uses cello fragments from my work ‘Aialik’ (2019), recorded in a studio and performed by Jean-Baptiste Texier. I processed those cello sounds in order to produce rough and chaotic sonorities with varying thicknesses and densities. These are kept in constant or stable tessituras in order to reduce the complexity, and are then used to produce variations by transposing their tessituras.
The polyphonic parts in fragments 6 and 7 combine two or more sounds, always based on the timbre of the cello. At one point (fragment 10) corresponding to the verse ‘traveling is what matters,’ I include a recording of a fracturing glacier (the Aialik in Alaska), which has been electronically processed. In this fragment, the sound of the breaking glacier is unaccompanied by the cello.
In short, my concept was to produce live cello sounds over previously recorded and processed cello sounds.”
Vivir en Aporesis (... o Turbulencias...) by Ana Teruel Medina based on La misma incertidumbre , a poem by Rosana Acquaroni
Translation:
La misma incertidumbre The same uncertainty
con la que un día preciso with which on a certain day
que ya fuiste acordando sin saberlo, you’d already unknowingly been arranging,
comienza a desprenderse the gauze hiding
la leve gasa que ocultara the story of your wound
la trama de tu herida, starts to come undone, una herida reciente que late sin hablar a recent wound that throbs without a word
y está tan dentro so deep within
que tu vida depende de mantenerla viva. that your life depends on keeping it alive.
Con la misma soltura As skillfully
con la que cada órgano se acomoda para el parto as each organ rearranges itself to give birth
y se abre un trecho de luz and a beam of light emerges
en mitad de tu cuerpo, at your body’s core,
una tarde descubres one afternoon you find
que no puedes contar tus cicatrices that you can’t count your scars
pues sus bordes te unen a fragmentos de otros, because their edges join you to fragments of others,
a vidas paralelas, to parallel lives,
a bálsamos de humo. to salves of smoke.
Y es entonces It is then
que esa herida se cumple that the wound is fulfilled
y es más cierta que el mundo, and is more certain than the world,
nos regresa al origen, taking us back to the source,
sus lámparas de arena, its sand lamps,
la palabra en el vientre, the word in the womb,
cuando todos vivíamos when we all lived
recíprocos y juntos reciprocally and together
cuidando las heridas. tending to our wounds.
“Aporia, also known as dubitatio, is a rhetorical or literary device used to express doubt or uncertainty. Aporia, doubt... This is our new life partner who has arrived uninvited and seems to have come to stay. How couldn’t I devote time and energy to it and create a composition... The proposed subject matter, uncertainty, and the current times led me to delve deeper into this topic.
The title itself is a play on words. ‘Vivir en Aporesis (‘Living in Aporia’) does not indicate a place, but a state of mind, a way of life. ‘Turbulencias’ (‘Turbulences’) is added as a nod to my children – a reference to a game we like to play. Doubt is the core and essence, not only of the title, but of the piece itself as a reflection of our current reality.
Musical rhetoric is a subject I have always been passionate about. Doubt is often expressed with an abrupt change of key, sometimes including a broken cadence in the target key.
In this piece I use a freer language to try to express doubt in different ways: with open endings, laying out two sound worlds, live instrument and prerecorded audio tracks, which coexist without seeking to complement each other; using different instrumental techniques that are interrupted without giving way to each other, looking for radical differences in the use of dynamics and articulations.
The poet Rosana Acquaroni, in her immense generosity, has allowed me to use her poem ‘La misma incertidumbre’ (‘The same uncertainty’) and her voice, which sounds on several occasions on the audio tracks. My greatest thanks to her.”
Veritas Vincit by Reyes Oteo based on a poem by María Cinta Montagut, spoken voice on the tape: Ruy and León Martín Oteo, based on the legend of Ludovico Angulo
Translation: Desconozco el sentido de los días I do not know the meaning of the days
que transcurren inciertos, that pass by in uncertainty,
como los tigres buscan entre ortigas as tigers search amongst the nettles
la textura del ser for the texture of being
y con indiferencia ven el agua and with indifference they see the water
que busca sin saberlo which unknowingly seeks
una salida, un dique, una alberca an outlet, a dam, a pool
que la haga existir, that makes it exist,
aún sabiendo, still knowing,
que nada nunca es lo que parece. that nothing is ever what it seems.
This mixed media piece for electroacoustic tape and solo cello demands a highly expressive technique. It is the first score ever written using Reyes Oteo’s own compositional system, which is a technique affecting registers, durations and functions using the concept of the Cantor set fractals. The electroacoustics are based on field recordings, which have been technically modified through sound synthesis and filtering.
The story behind the piece is the legend of Ludovico Angulo, a twelfth-century ancestor of Reyes Oteo who lived in the Angulo Valley in Burgos, a region in northern Spain. The legend is told in Leyendas genealógicas de España (Genealogical Legends of Spain), by Antonio de Trueba (1887), and in Vergel de nobles y linajes de España (Compendium of Nobles and Lineages of Spain) by Pedro Gratia Dei, chronicler of the Catholic Monarchs and Charles I of Spain.
Reference text: legend of the Angulo family (Rosario F. Cartes)
Ludovico, the second son of an Anglo-Norman knight who reigned in the barony of Navan, in Ireland, was condemned by John the Landless to lose his life for going against his father’s laws and orders. The nobles of the kingdom interceded for the infant, and the king was content with banishing him to a desert island.
Movements:
I. The ocean in the mirror Snakes... wild beasts... doomed island
Ludovico left to meet his destiny accompanied by a squire he had in his service. Upon their arrival, the prince and the squire found, to their dismay, that the island was inhabited by monstrous beasts and provided no sustenance.
II. The routes of Sagittarius Monstrous griffins appeared out of thin air
They put themselves in the hands of God and the Virgin Mary, and even managed to win their first combat against great serpents that attacked them on the ground and monstrous griffins, half eagle and half lion, that attacked them from the air.
III. Atlas *As tigers search amongst the nettles* They flew over those seas
By trickery, they managed to outwit the monsters and were carried by the griffins in their claws across the seas. So, they flew and flew, until they landed in the Pyrenees Mountains, between France and Navarre (then a kingdom in northern Spain).
IV. Weeping in unison A hellish cold ...and it kept them properly warm, both within and without
Aided by a shepherd, who gave them food and shelter, they journeyed down to Navarre, where war was being waged against the Moors, and they joined the Christians and fought bravely.
V. On the horns of the moon ...on the horns of the moon
Such exploits earned them the king’s favor and trust. Ludovico, having changed his name to Don Luis, declared his lineage before the king, as the son of a Scot lord.
VI. Epilogue of the river over the Ahedo A robust castle rose in the valley where the river splashes
Don Luis married as befitted his rank and lineage and, with his children, built a castle in the Angulo Valley. His successors spread throughout the Valley of Mena and places like Oteo, in the Valley of Losa, acquiring a reputation as excellent knights. “In a moment of uncertain destiny that occurs on the uninhabitable island, when the infant and his squire come close to dying of hunger and thirst, I imagined their reverie, described in the imagery of the poem by Cinta Montagut.” -Reyes Oteo
Questo tremito, questo vacillamento by María del Carmen Asenjo-Marrodán based on Città dispersa tra gli inciseri, a poem by Maria Attanasio
Città dispersa tra gli incensieri il battito il vocio la vita che fu notte barocca paramento era transito d'ombra casa al vento tra galletti ferrigni e banderuole verderamina d'antenati che ritorna fiamma. "Questo tremito, adesso, questo vacillamento."
A city scattered amongst the censers the throbbing the cacophony life that was baroque night vestments that were transit of shadow home to the wind amongst ferrous cockerels and weathervanes ancestral patina that returns as flame. “This trembling, now, this wavering.”
“Questo tremito, adesso, questo vacillamento” (“This trembling, now, this wavering”) is the line that closes this highly intense poem by Maria Attanasio and gives the piece its title. Although I have often used literature as a source of inspiration for my sound worlds, in this case I could say that the link is even closer: evocative images such as “baroque night”, “transit of shadow”, “the throbbing the cacophony” or that “trembling” that seems to be present throughout are at the foundation of the material that strings together the narrative. In turn, the text, recited in its original language, creates a parallel dialogue with the flow of the cello’s line.
In short, it could be said that this piece aspires to create a ductile, malleable and flexible sound capable of reflecting the refinement, richness and expressive intensity together with the emotion contained in this poem.
Un mundo sin bocas y con olor a desinfectante by Diana Pérez Custodio based on Oigo el cuchillo azul de las sirenas , a poem by María Cinta Montagut
Translation:
Oigo el cuchillo azul de las sirenas I hear the blue knife of the sirens
el ulular del aire sin pupilas the howling of the air without pupils
en el asombro de las avenidas. in the shock of the avenues.
Sopla el viento en la noche The wind blows at night
que no se piensa unthought
que no se puede ver. unseen.
No words. No mouths. Just eyes looking out of their sockets trying to decipher a future that is more uncertain than usual. Meanwhile, hands shed their skin like growing snakes, exhaling sanitizer vapors.
BIOGRAPHIES
Kathleen Balfe
Kathleen Balfe has lived and worked in Spain since 2003, when she began her career with the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra. In 2007 she won the principal cello position with the City of Granada Orchestra, which she still holds today. She has also been a founding member of the contemporary group Ensemble neoArs Sonora since its inception in 2008.
With these groups, Kathleen has had the opportunity to perform at the most renowned festivals and institutions in Spain, such as the CNDM, the Spanish Music Festival of Cadiz, the Canary Islands Music Festival, Musica Músika in Bilbao, the Classical Musical Festival of El Escorial, La Quincena Musical in San Sebastián and the Granada Festival of Music and Dance.
She has appeared with Ensemble neoArs Sonora on Spanish national radio (on RTVE’s “Programa de Mano”) and in 2016 recorded a four-disc project, “Patrimonios Sonoros”, subsidized by the BBVA Foundation and dedicated to Spanish composers.
Kathleen Balfe collaborates with the New Century Chamber Orchestra in San Francisco and is a member of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music orchestra in Santa Cruz, California, devoted exclusively to contemporary music written by composers mostly from the United States.
She has recorded albums with various ensembles for Verso, Bis and RCA Records.
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María José Arenas
In recent years, María José Arenas has become one of the most sought-after young composers by top performers and music festivals, nationally and internationally. Her work, praised by audiences at each premiere and concert, is energetic and rich, bringing experience and reflection together to produce a wide catalog of pieces that push performers to delve into the meaning of the narrative.
Among her most outstanding works for different musical ensembles are “Resiliencias” premiered by Trio Arbós, “Maktub I” performed by violinists such as Alejandro Bustamante, Vladimir Dmitrenco and Manuel Guillén, “Orson Welles para niños” performed by pianist Iván Martín, “Maktub I” premiered by harpist Cristina Montes, “Kibbutz” premiered by the Habana String Quartet, “El sanatorio de los incurables” premiered by the Cordoba Orchestra, “Relojes Blandos” premiered by Taller Sonoro, “La evidencia de los significados” recorded by Dúo Sincronía, “Los aromas exactos” performed by mezzo-soprano Marta Knörr and pianist Aurelio Viribay, “H’s Proyect” performed by the pianist Patricia Arauzo and “Hum” for waterphone, commissioned and performed by Juanjo Guillén.
She has also collaborated in the project La Alhambra interpretada with the work “El idioma dormido de las cosas” (performed by Cecilia Bercovich and Cristina Montes) and the project Rompiendo esquemas, organized by the Reina Sofía Conservatory of Music in Madrid and the Spanish national public classical radio station, with the piece “...aun cuando el mundo no existiese.”
Currently, she is a professor of composition at the Manuel Castillo Conservatory of Music in Seville. Pilar Miralles Pilar Miralles (1997), born in Almería (Spain), is currently based in Helsinki, pursuing a Master of Music in Composition from the Sibelius Academy of Uniarts in Helsinki.
With prior studies in flute and piano, Pilar holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Composition from the Victoria Eugenia Conservatory of Music in Granada and a Master’s Degree in Electroacoustic Composition from the Katarina Gurska Conservatory of Music in Madrid.
She has composed for different ensembles in Spain, Czech Republic, USA, France, Sweden and Finland, and received awards from various national and international competitions such as the 2019 International Antonín Dvořák Composition Competition in Prague, the 2019 Young Composers Award of the Spanish Society of Authors and Editors (SGAE), the 2020 Île de Créations Composition Competition in Paris and the 2020 Linköpings Studentsångare Composition Award in Sweden.
In her electroacoustic work, Pilar focuses on algorithmic and stochastic sound synthesis using SuperCollider, a programming language. In her instrumental compositions, she has created her own personal language drawing from traditional western music.
Beatriz Arzamendi Zeziaga
Born in Arrasate-Mondragón in the Basque Country in 1961, Beatriz Arzamendi Zeziaga began playing music in the youth orchestra Arrasate Musikal, founded and directed by her father Juan Arzamendi-Emparanza.
At the Madrid Royal Conservatory of Music, she earned college degrees in Composition (with an honorable mention), Orchestral Conducting, Choir Conducting, Violin and in Solfege, Music Theory, Transposition, and Piano Accompaniment. As part of her studies, she participated in conducting workshops with Ros Marbá, Celebidache, Rilling, Comisiona and Machat, and in composition workshops with De Pablo, Guinjoan, Nascimbene, Delerue, Gentilucci, Villa-Rojo and Barce.
Beatriz Arzamendi Zeziaga has been a teacher of varied disciplines in the music field. She worked as a music consultant for the Community of Madrid before becoming the head of the music division at the Teatros del Canal theatrical center in 2012, where she is currently coordinator of choreography. She was Vice President of the Asociación Mujeres en la Música (Association of Women in Music) (2010-14) and Music Advisor for public institution Acción Cultural Española (Spanish Cultural Action) (2014-15).
Her works have premiered in festivals and auditoriums around the world. “Homenaje a Mompou” for two pianos was premiered by the group Iberian & Klavier at Carnegie Hall in New York in 2015. In 2018, “Dardara,” commissioned by the Cristóbal Halffter Festival, was premiered both at the Rudolfinum Hall in Prague and at the Third Cristóbal Halffter Festival in Ponferrada (a city in central Spain). In 2020, the Korean ensemble Ensemble Sori performed “Música para catorce momentos estelares” at the Chamber Hall of the Seoul Art Center. In addition, her works were premiered in Festival Clásicos en Verano, Teatro Monumental, Teatros del Canal, Teatro Campos Elíseos in Bilbao, New Music Miami Festival, Eine musikalische Reise durch Spanien (Berlin), and the Contemporary Music Festivals in Tres Cantos and in Tenerife.
Consuelo Díez
Born in Madrid in 1958, Consuelo Díez is a pianist and composer. She completed her higher education at the Madrid Conservatory of Music, obtaining degrees in Composition, Piano and Music Theory. She also holds a degree in Art History from the Complutense University of Madrid.
She later completed her musical training at the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford in the United States, earning a PhD in Musical Arts and a Master’s Degree in Composition, Electronic Music and Music Informatics. She has studied with composers including: A. García Abril, R. Alís, C. Bernaola, L. de Pablo, C. Halffter, J. Sellars and R. Carl.
Consuelo Díez has won different national and international awards, including the Norman Bayles Memorial Award in Composition, Real Art Ways, Pi Kappa Lambda (USA); City of Heidelberg (Germany); II Panorama de Jóvenes Compositores and Jóvenes Creadores (Spain). She has also been selected to represent Spain at the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers, the International Society of Contemporary Music (ISCM), the Charles Ives Center (USA) and the Biennial of European Artists in Bologna (Italy), and has participated in numerous festivals around the world.
Consuelo Díez directed the Spanish public radio program about electroacoustic music “El canto de los adolescentes” for several years. Music Advisor for the Spanish public television broadcasting station (TVE), her works are featured in seventeen recordings and have been published by Mundimúsica, RTVE-Música and ArteTripharia.
Dolores Serrano Cueto
Composer, pianist, and teacher, Dolores Serrano Cueto was born in Cadiz, a city in the south of Spain that has served as inspiration for many of her works, one of the most emblematic of these being “Caibanera Blues” (2016). More than three decades ago, she began teaching musical rhetoric, piano, composition, and analysis, specializing in Musical Theater and Musical Pedagogy for elementary school-aged children. Since 1998 she has worked as a music teacher at the Municipal Dance School in San Fernando (Cadiz), and continues to give workshops to theater groups and associations devoted to social projects.
Always enthusiastic about the idea of creating projects revolving around music, she has trained in various artistic disciplines, such as dance, theater and stage design. This path led her to compose “Si las divas no llevan chanclas, las cajeras tampoco!” (2017) and “De los pies a la cabeza: línea recta a la Derecha” (2018), to create micro-musical theaters such as “La Sala de Espera” and “Hilo Musical” (2017) and produce street theater projects such as “Convivencia en Movimiento -más allá del aula-.”
Dolores Serrano Cueto has premiered concert, film and theater works, both in Spain and internationally, some of which are available on CD and DVD. Several publishers and music magazines have written articles and reviews about her creations. Her work “Soñando el tiempo de Lorca” (2019) was the basis of a Master’s thesis defended at Trinity Laban in London.
Anna Bofill Levi Anna Bofill Levi, a PhD-holder in architecture, began composing without formal lessons. She studied piano with J. Albareda and analysis with J.M. Mestres Quadreny, mathematics with Eduard Bonet and electroacoustic music at the Phonos laboratory in Barcelona and at the CEMAMU in Paris with Iannis Xenakis. She was taught, among others, by Luigi Nono.
Her catalogue boasts over 120 pieces for solo instruments, voice, ensembles, orchestra, mixed electroacoustic and solo, which have been performed in Spanish cities, European capitals and the Americas. Her compositions have been released in two single-composer CD albums and several compilation CD albums. She is currently a professor of the Master’s Degree in Sound Art at the University of Barcelona.
In addition, Anna Bofill Levi has worked as a scenographer and has created music for theater, coordinating diverse musical productions and multidisciplinary and multimedia concerts. She is also a lecturer and a writer focusing on music by women composers. In 2009 she received the President Macià Medal from the Government of Catalonia for her work. Her written publications include: “Generation of forms: Space to Inhabit, Time to Think,” published by Deutscher Kunstverlag in 2009 in Berlin, München. She also published “Los sonidos del silencio: aproximación a la creación musical de las mujeres,” edited by Aresta in Barcelona in 2015. She has edited for Clivis, Dinsic, La ma de guido, Periferia and Música Studio.
Ana Teruel Medina
Composer and teacher Ana Teruel was born in Vélez-Rubio (Almería, Spain).
With a background in piano, she inherited her love and respect for music and scores from her first mentor Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Pujante, completing a composition degree at the Victoria Eugenia Conservatory of Music in Granada with teachers including Francisco Ruiz Montés, Juan Cruz Guevara, and Francisco González Pastor.
Starting at a young age, Ana Teruel attended conferences and took various courses in piano, organ and other early keyboard instruments, as well as choir conducting and composition, where she interacted with great professionals from different fields. The pianist Juan José Pérez Torrecillas and the composer Tatyana Chudova strongly influenced her form of understanding and experiencing music.
She later specialized in music instruction and teaching techniques, obtaining a Master’s Degree in e-learning from the Open University of Catalonia in 2019.
Ana Teruel has composed works commissioned by solo performers and chamber groups that have been premiered at festivals throughout Spain and abroad.
Since 2009 she has taught at various Andalusian conservatories. Currently she teaches at the Manuel de Falla Conservatory of Music in Cadiz.
Reyes Oteo Reyes Otero is an electronic luthier, composer and violinist. She studied violin, philosophy and electronics, and graduated with a degree in composition.
Her creations range from instrumental contemporary classical music to experimental electronic music, while teaching as Head of Composition and Instrumentation at the music conservatories of Cordoba and Malaga, and serving there as the director of the Contemporary Music Workshop for a number of years.
An electronic luthier, she has invented and built a large number of interactive electronic instruments including the Fructophone, the Interactive pannier, the Wormophone, and the Rock with nails both for live electronic music and in order to create sounds for the stage and dance. These instruments have been used in works such as “12 Piedras: ritual” as a scenic device and “4 Ostinati Amorosi,” by Diana Pérez Custodio in “Don’t worry. Everything is out of control” performed by the Katapult Kollective, conducted by Olaf Kehler; and as part of a cyborg project with interactive elements and lasers called “KittKittPEOW!!!!”
Reyes Oteo has had pieces commissioned for performances in auditoriums and festivals such as the Fonoteca Nacional de México, Central University of New York, Roulette, Audiotheque in Miami Beach, Idka Festival (Sweden), Museo Nacional-Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Contemporary Music Festival of Cordoba (Spain), Cervantes Theater with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Malaga (live electronic music for Prelude to the Opera Medea, by Martín-Jaime), Campus Estellae Festival in Santiago de Compostela, Guggenheim Museum – BIO-Jet Lag festival, RadicaldB festival – Etopia, Center for Art and Technology, and the Sibelius Academy Centre for Music & Technology in Helsinki.
María del Carmen Asenjo-Marrodán
María del Carmen Asenjo-Marrodán holds a degree in Composition from the Rafael Orozco Conservatory in Cordoba, as well as a degree in Hispanic Philology from the University of Seville. She completed her studies in composition taught by Jorge E. López, Mauricio Sotelo, Alberto Posadas, José Manuel López López, César Camarero, Horacio Vaggione, Gabriel Erkoreka, Alfredo Aracil and Hilda Paredes, among others. She expanded her skills with studies in Electroacoustic Composition and New Media from the Madrid and the Katarina Gurska Conservatories of Music, and completed a Master’s Degree at the University of Granada. María del Carmen Asenjo-Marrodán has collaborated with the contemporary music magazine Espacio Sonoro, conducting interviews with composers such as Liz Lim, Cosimo Colazzo and Louis Aguirre.
Her works include many acousmatic pieces: “Aux quatre coins du monde”, “Fronteras del abismo”, performed at Elektronisk Musik in Copenhagen in 2016 and at L’oreille concrète in Marseille in 2018, “Beyond”, premiered in the auditorium of the Katarina Gurska Conservatory of Music in 2019, and mixed media compositions such as “Cómo mueren las estrellas” for piano and electronics premiered at Jornadas de Música contemporánea de Huelva in 2014 and performed at the Auditorio Príncipe Felipe de Oviedo in 2018, “Frammentazioni di una spirale tumultuosa” for alto saxophone and electronica, as well as works for various instrumental ensembles that have been performed by groups and artists such as Taller sonoro, Nou Ensemble, Motocontrario Ensemble, Naomi Sato, Ricardo Bedoya, María José Álvarez, and Mikkel Andersen.
María del Carmen Asenjo-Marrodán combines conservatory teaching with composing and musical research. Her line of research is focused on the analysis of 20t h and 21s t century music, both instrumental and electronic, one of her main areas of interest being granular synthesis processing in instrumental music.
Diana Perez Custodio
Diana Perez Custodio was born in Algeciras (Cadiz, Spain) in 1970. S he holds a PhD in Audiovisual Communication, advanced degrees in Solfege, Piano, Chamber Music and Composition, and an intermediate level Oboe certification. She furthered her Composition and Electroacoustic Music studies in Barcelona with Gabriel Brncic, piano studies with Liliana Maffiotte, and Analysis with Claudio Zulian.
She worked from 1990 through 2020 at the Malaga Conservatory of Music, teaching Piano Accompaniment, Musical Acoustics and Organology for three years, and coordinating the Electroacoustic Music and Musical Technology Laboratory for five years. She then worked as an Associate Professor in the Department of Audiovisual Communication and Advertising at the University of Malaga from 2000 to 2004, and was Professor of Composition at the Malaga Conservatory of Music from 2005 to 2020.
After a brief period performing chamber music, she has now devoted herself fully to composition, with a special interest in the human voice, new technologies, and multimedia art.