COMPOSES OF THE 2022 LATINX COMPOSER MINIATURE CHALLENGE
Bahué Announces the Composers of the 2022 Latinx Composer Miniature Challenge
Boston, MA / Los Angeles, CA (April 18, 2022) - The voice and percussion duo, Bahué, announces the featured composers of the 2022 LATINX COMPOSER MINIATURE CHALLENGE (#LCMC). The miniature works for voice and percussion will premiere on Instagram, YouTube, and will be featured on the Bahué website.
“I Am I” by Paolo Griffin
Premieres on April 29, 2022
“Vamonos a Guyana” by Álvaro Gallegos
Premieres on May 6, 2022
“me estimo a mi mismo en la tierra” by J Diaz
Premieres on May 13, 2022
“refraction” by Joshua Marquez
Premieres on May 20, 2022
“Explosión” by Alex Guerrero
Premieres on May 27, 2022
“Mirando hacia el Firmamento” by Ida Sanchez Tello
Premieres on June 3, 2022
“Velando” J. Andrés Ballesteros
Premieres on June 10, 2022
This is the bicoastal duo’s inaugural project, whose mission is to advocate for and uplift Latinx artistry and culture through music. They challenged composers who identify as Latino/a/x to compose miniature pieces for vocalist Aliana de la Guardia and percussionist Ariel Campos. Recording their parts remotely, they will premiere the miniature works virtually.
“The amazing thing that came out of COVID-19 is that we have figured out how to collaborate remotely with artists anywhere. Now we can connect, and produce work that we care about within our nationwide Latinx community!” Aliana de la Guardia, vocalist of Bahué
Like and subscribe to @bahueduo on Instagram and YouTube to witness the virtual world premieres of these new miniature compositions. Visit bahueduo.com/lcmc to learn more.
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PERFORMER BIOS
Ariel Campos is a Los Angeles based percussionist. His diverse musical background includes performances with artists and groups; Kelly Clarkson, John Legend, Country Pop Duo “Brooks and Dunn”, Jennifer Lopez, Latin Jazz artists Louie Cruz-Beltran, Francisco Aguabella and Poncho Sanchez. He was an original cast member of the Tony and Emmy award winning musical “Blast!,” which premiered in London. As a solo percussionist Campos has been featured in solo concerts and recitals with the UCLA Philharmonia, California State University, Northridge Wind Ensemble, Union High School Percussion Ensemble in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Campos can also be heard as a featured musician on the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to the film “Bella.”
Aliana de la Guardia is a Cuban-American artist with a multifaceted career as a soprano vocalist, entrepreneur, actor, and educator. A co-founding artist and Artistic Director of Guerilla Opera. De la Guardia has 15 years of experience leading this ensemble with many newly commissioned operatic roles tailor-made for her ferocious stage presence and garnered acclaim for her “dazzling flights of virtuosity” (Gramophone) in “vocally fearless” performances that are “fizzing with theatrical commitment” (The Boston Globe). Aliana specializes in contemporary classical and experimental repertoire, and has enjoyed collaborations featuring today’s most eminent composers and with the acclaimed organizations of Beth Morrison Projects, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Boston New Music Festival, Dinosaur Annex, Enigma Chamber Opera, Ludovico Ensemble, Monadnock Music, New Gallery Concert Series, the PARMA Festival, Transient Canvas, and Winsor Music, among others.. She is a Parma Recordings artist and can be heard on their Navona and Ravello Records labels, as well as BMOP Sound and other independent labels. (alianadelaguardia.com/bio)
#LCMC FEATURED COMPOSERS
Paolo Griffin is a Peruvian-Canadian composer based in Tkarón:to/Toronto whose music explores notions of focused/unfocussed listening, repetition, and formal structures while maintaining a focus on close collaboration and creative spontaneity with the performers he works with. Paolo’s music has been featured in concerts and on the radio by the Resident Orkest (NL), The New European Ensemble (NL), Avanti! Chamber Music (FI), Duo Holz (CA), Freesound (CA), and more. Paolo is also the Artistic and Executive Director of Freesound, a Toronto-based performer’s collective that consists of a core group of the city’s most adventurous young musicians and interpreters of contemporary music. (paologriffin.com)
Born in 1979, Álvaro Gallegos is a Chilean music journalist, lecturer, scholar and composer based in Santiago, Chile. He has written for newspapers, magazines, and websites, and has produced CDs, including two albums for Naxos Records. He has composed some twenty pieces, including for solo instruments and orchestral works. In 2017 he won the “President of the Republic” Music Award, and in 2019 the “Domingo Santa Cruz” Award from the Chilean Academy of Fine Arts.
J Diaz is a queer, Mexican sound maker based in Glagow, UK. They are currently a PhD student at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland where they investigate the biases of staff-based notation. (diazsounds.wixsite.com)
Joshua Marquez is a Philadelphia-based Filipinx-American composer, guitarist, and sound artist whose music explores the liminal space between tone/noise. Searing a sonic imprint of cultural identity, his explorations of the noise spectrum represent alienation and assimilation through the fusion and fission of disparate timbres. Joshua’s music is described as “upsetting and calming in equal measure” with atmospheres that “sink into your skin” (Prism Reviews). Hailed as ""cutting-edge"" (The Gazette), “expertly crafted” (We Write About Music), ""haunting"" (The Daily Iowan), and ""creepy"" (Fanfare Magazine), Marquez's polemic deconstruction and disintegration of sound aims to present music through a decolonized lens. (joshuamarquez.com)
Alex Guerrero’s background as a singer greatly informs his compositions: as an operatic lyric tenor who performs with The Metropolitan Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago Choruses; as a concert soloist; and as a chamber, concert, and liturgical choral artist who’s performed with the Grammy Award-winning True Concord, the Sephardi Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue (the oldest North American Jewish congregation) and the Choir at St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue (both in New York City), and the symphonic choruses alongside the world-renown Philadelphia Orchestra and The New York Philharmonic. His setting of “Tenebrae factae sunt” was a prize winner in The New York Virtuoso Singers’ composition competition. (soundcloud.com/MusicoAlex)
Ida Sanchez Tello studied voice in the National Conservatory of Music and later transferred to Mannes where she majored in Choral Conducting under the tutelage of Mark Shapiro. She studied harmony and counterpoint with Robert Cuckson, Chris Park and José Suárez. Her first published works were premiered in 2018 in Mexico City as part of the cycle of songs "Testimonios de la Tierra". Aside from music, she also studied Biomedical Engineering.
J. Andrés Ballesteros is a composer, educator, and speaker based in Cambridge, MA. His works are centered in classical music but include a variety of musical styles, from Latin music to electronics and theater. Andrés regularly works on collaborative projects that engage with youth and community organizations in creating original works around issues they face. He has been recognized for his leadership in working to expand the representation and performance of works by historically underrepresented composers. His work was recently recognized in Ana Francisca Vega’s book Corazón de Mexicanos Como Yo, highlighting 50 Mexican-Americans who broke boundaries. (jaballesteros.com)
