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biography
hilda paredes
©Toni Hutchings
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Firmly established as one of the leading Mexican composers of her generation, made her home in London since 1979 and her music is now performed widely around the world. As an active participant in master classes at Dartington Summer School, studied with Peter Maxwell Davies and Richard Rodney Bennett. After graduating at the Guildhall School of Music, she obtained her Master of Arts at City University in London and completed her PhD at Manchester University. Her collaboration with choreographers led her to receive the Music for Dance Award from the Arts Council of Great Britain in 1988. After taking part at the Garden Venture Opera Project in Dartington, she completed her first chamber opera The seventh seed, released by Mode Records. She continues to be involved in the musical life of her native country, teaching at the University in Mexico City and several other music institutions and was also a radio producer of new music. She has been recipient of important awards, such as the Arts Council of Great Britain fellowship for composers; the Rockefeller, Fund for Culture Mexico/USA and the J.S. Guggenheim Fellowship in the USA and is currently beneficiary of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores, (FONCA) in Mexico. Hilda now lives in London as a freelance composer and has taught composition and lectured at Manchester University, the University of San Diego California, University of Buffalo and other prestigious Universities in the US, at Centre Acanthes in France and in 2007 was appointed the Darius Milhuad Visiting Professor at Mills College in the US. This year, she has been visiting professor at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya en Barcelona. Her second chamber opera El Palacio Imaginado, commissioned by Musik der Jahrhunderte, English National Opera and the Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven, was premiered with much acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. Recently completed works include Fragmentos de Altazor for a cappella voices written for Neue Vocalsolisten, who premiered it in Stuttgart last December and Revelación for ensemble and live electronics, choreographed by Ana Luján, commissioned by Integra - Fusing music and technology and by Grup Instrumental de Valencia. Currently working on Altazor based on the epic poem by Vicente Huidobro a commission for Festival D’Autumne a Paris 2011, for Guillermo Anzorena, L'Instant Donné and live electronics being created at IRCAM. More recently she has been granted the award from Sistema Nacional de Creadores, FONCA in Mexico. Her works are published by University of York Music Press: www.uymp.co.uk Hilda Paredes has been commissioned by soloists, ensembles and orchestras around the world. Her music has been performed by internationally renowned ensembles such as Lontano, London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Modern, Neue Vocalsolisten, Ensemble Recherche, Aventure, Ensamble Sospeso and Arditti Quartet, amongst others. Her music has been widely performed at important international festivals, such as Huddersfield, Edinburgh Festival in the UK; Eclat and Ultraschall in Germany; Musica and Octobre en Normandie, in France; Wien Modern, in Austria; Akiyoshidai and Takefu Music Festivals, in Japan; Archipel ans Music monat , in Switzerland; De Ijsbreker Chamber Music Festival, in Amsterdam; Warsaw Autumn, in Poland; Ultima, in Oslo; Melbourne Festival, in Australia; Festival of Arts and Ideas in the USA, Ars Musica in Bruxelles; Festival de Alicante and ENSEMNS Festival, in Spain; Festival Internacional Cervantino in Mexico, amongst others. |
Reviews for : Festival d’Automne à Paris |
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Discography: -Mode Records New York (60):The Seventh Seed, chamber opera in 3 acts, for 5 voices, string quartet and percussion. Permutaciones, for solo violin. |
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Articles published: The concept of time in the music of Elliott Carter, published and translated into Spanish. Pauta 42 (Mexico,1992) Recent publication on Hilda Paredes Das ei(ge)ne und das andere, die Mexikanische komponistin Hilda Paredes by |
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Selected reviews “What the music of the Maya’s sounded like, nobody knows anymore. But the Mexican composer Hilda Paredes searches for answers in each recorded thought, in each numerological symbolism, and thus in the roots of her own culture” “Its rhythmic vitality seduced an audience that was previously sceptical to any proposal by this Latin woman… the reaction was shocking, but with a telluric presence, like our volcanoes.” “…nothing to match the refinement of seamless, Mayan influenced “concerto for ensemble” Ah Paaxo’ob by the Mexican Hilda Paredes” Paul Driver, SUNDAY TIMES.London (2002) “Watching the world premier of Hilda Paredes’ chamber opera Phantom Palace, I had the sort of out-of body experience where you say to yourself “This can’t be happening in New Haven”. I simply couldn’t come to terms with the realization that I was seeing topflight European modern opera, performed by a major international company premiering a ceaselessly provocative, unexpectedly comic and altogether amazing work…just a few blocks from my home. This is the kind of thing you feel you can only travel huge distances to see. But there it is: New Haven should be talking about Phantom Palace-in a number of languages- for years to come”. “Social activism finds voice in opera. In setting the story, Paredes evidently sought to draw on the musical qualities of the languages used to tell it, sometimes employing electronic means to manipulate her sound material (the spirit voices are made to come from different parts of the theatre), and sometimes using leitmotif textures (rather than themes) to evoke dramatic situations. “I cannot resist praising the Homenaje a Remedios Varo by Hilda Paredes as outstanding, not to mention it’s acute and clear formal construction, with nothing less than a sweeping and impressive finale.” “Amongst the jewels of the programme was the emotive and well crafted Homenaje a Remedios Varo, written in 1995 by the ascending Mexican composer Hilda Paredes.” “The pieces on this disc were written over a three-year period, from the 1998 string quartet Uy U Tan through the settings of Mayan spells and incantations in Can Silim Tun (1999), to the piano quintet Cotidales and the ambitious ensemble piece Ah Paaxo'ob from 2001. All show that Paredes is a composer with a fresh aural imagination, while her Carter-like use of instrumentalists as dramatic protagonists gives her music an extra dimension. Superbly played, it's music worth investigating.” The Guardian (2005) “From the composer Hilda Paredes, ONIX performed Corazón de ónix, conducted by José Luis Castillo. This is a complex and ambitious piece, well written and with atmospheric and colouristic qualities. It also has solid treatment of different sound production of the instruments. These timbric qualities are enhanced by Paredes with the use of the bass and alto flute as well as bass clarinet. Corazón de ónix is marked by an interesting expressivity and by very attractive harmonic instability, which is enhanced by the use of micro-intervals and glissandi. All these elements merge in numerous moments of an evocative poetic sonority that is at the same time intense and concentrated”. La Jornada, Mexico. Juan Arturo Brennan. 2006 “Paredes, born in Mexico but long resident in London, should be better known. All four works are finely written and full of life. The title of her string quartet, Uy U T’an — in ancient Mayan — means Listen How They Talk, and Paredes takes the idea of “discourse” literally. The idea dates back to Haydn’s quartets, but she gives it an Arditti-ish twist, and the work has a superb dramatic sweep. The Ardittis are joined by the pianist Ian Pace for Cotidales and by Neue Vokalsolisten Stuttgart for the magic-spell evocation of Can Silim Tun. Ah Paaxo’ob (Those Who Play the Music) is a colourfully detailed ensemble piece.” Three stars. The Sunday Times (2005) “Paredes has often been included as part of a new generation of Mexican composers eschewing any division between northern and southern hemispheric musical cultures, focusing on the often tension-filled relations between them. And while it would not be inaccurate to compare Paredes’ chamber works to those of Ligeti, Xenakis, or Tristan Murail, it is her attention to the relationship between communication and miscommunication, conversation and noise, that sets her work apart. In thinking about Paredes’ chamber works, we can borrow a phrase from the philosopher Michel Serres, "the miracle of harmony." Reviewed by Eugene Thacker “Besides his usual conducting duties, Burns showed to be a meltingly smooth trumpeter and flugelhorn player in Hilda Paredes "Ooxp eel ik'il t'aan," a 2007 work for percussion and electronics where Mayan poetry is read by author Briceida Cuevas (heard via a recording) to invoke ancient mysticism. This fusion of indigenous and modern American modes of expression bridged the millennia both convincingly and imaginatively.” Chicago Sun-Times May 21, 2010 BY BRYANT MANNING “Such emotional depth could be found in the comparatively spare, even sepulchral textures of Hilda Paredes' Canciones Lunáticas. These were three 'lunatic' songs set around a contemplation of the moon's solitary witness for a dark night, moving through a wild second song of lunacy, before emerging in celebration of the moon dancing 'by herself in the meadow' (this last set to a spectrally buoyant version of the Mexican ternary-binarydance, the huapango). The musical language of the setting was narratively alert, sometimes pictorial, sometimes obtuse, but always sensitive, agitated, and energised.” MusicalCriticism.com (2011) |
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