Thank you to the LCMC 2.0 Panel
Community is at the heart of Bahué’s Latinx Composer Miniature Challenge. Before we announce the LCMC 2.0 composers we would like to thank our selection panel, Jaime Díaz, Matthew Lau, Isabel Crespo Pardo, Jimena Maldonado, and Sebastian Zubieta, for their dedication and expertise in carefully evaluating each submission.
Their commitment to highlighting diverse voices within the Latinx community has been instrumental in shaping the tapestry of compositions that will be showcased in this challenge. Through their collective efforts, we can celebrate and amplify the rich cultural heritage and artistic contributions of Latinx composers.
La comunidad está en el corazón del Latinx Composer Miniature Challenge de Bahué. Antes de anunciar los compositores de LCMC 2.0, nos gustaría agradecer a nuestro panel de selección por su dedicación y experiencia al evaluar cuidadosamente cada presentación: Jaime Díaz, Matthew Lau, Isabel Crespo Pardo, Jimena Maldonado, and Sebastian Zubieta.
Su compromiso de resaltar diversas voces dentro de la comunidad latina ha sido fundamental para dar forma al tapiz de composiciones que se exhibirán en este desafío. A través de sus esfuerzos colectivos, podemos celebrar y amplificar la rica herencia cultural y las contribuciones artísticas de los compositores latinos.
Jimena Maldonado is a Mexican composer, researcher and educator. Having studied both Composition and Photography, she is interested in combining the two disciplines in order to achieve alternative forms of composing, researching, collaborating, and presenting her work. Her music has been performed and commissioned by the Ligeti Quartet (UK), Jeffrey Zeigler (USA), Decibel ensemble (UK), Cuarteto José White (MX), Cepromusic Ensamble (MX), Rohan de Saram (UK), Orkest de Ereprijs (NL), BlackBox Ensemble (USA), Bozzini Quartet (CAN), and HD Duo (AUS), in festivals such as the Manuel Enríquez International Festival of New Music (MX), Le Tout-petit festival musical (FR), Open Circuit Festival (UK), Fem Fest (NL), Dag in de Branding (NL) and MATA Festival (USA), among others. In 2020, she won the prestigious Hildegard Competition of the National Sawdust in New York City. Her debut album ‘Intervened memory’ was released in 2022 by Birmingham Record Company. Jimena completed a BA in Composition and Music Theory at the Research and Music Studies Centre (CIEM) in Mexico City and holds an MA in Composition from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. She completed a PhD at the Birmingham Conservatoire, with the support of CONACYT-FINBA (MX). Jimena currently works as a freelance composer and a Lecturer at the Prins Claus Conservatorium.
Matthew Lau
Hailed by the Aspen Times for his “soulful and technically impressive solo” at his vibraphone concerto debut at the Aspen Music Festival, award-winning percussionist Dr. Matthew Lau has an absolute commitment to communicate the meaning and essence of percussion music with high-calibre performances with a whimsical twist. As a queer Asian percussionist, Matthew challenge the convention narratives and work to change the traditional prescribed career path. He is currently on the Board of Advisor and Keyboard Committee for The Percussive Arts Society, and Board of Directors for The Vibraphone Project Inc.
Matthew is the co-founder and artistic director of Hong Kong contemporary percussion group The Up:Strike Project, and is part of the duo Fisher/Lau Project. Matthew performed and taught in universities, festival and competitions in countries like USA, Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Taiwan, Spain, Australia, and Russia. Matthew receives grants from the Boston Foundation and Hong Kong Arts Development Council, and is named Award for New Artist. Matthew is artist endorser of Marimba One, Black Swamp Percussion, and Elite Mallets (Spain)
Isabel Crespo Pardo
Isabel Crespo Pardo (they/them) is a NYC-based latinx vocalist, improviser-composer, and interdisciplinary artist. Their work actively entangles music, visual art, text and performance, always evolving to reflect the intra/interpersonal spaces they inhabit. Reveling in soft chaos, they embrace openness and specificity to create poetic work(s).
For Crespo, art is a place to gather, to exercise intuition, rigor and delight. They are deeply invested in building generative structures and intentionally inviting others into focused explorations. Crespo’s main compositional vehicle is sinonó, a poemsong trio featuring themself (voice), Lester St. Louis (cello), Henry Fraser (bass). Their affinity for melody, metaphor and abstraction draws them into familiar yet surprising environments, crackling with aliveness. sinonó released their debut album, la espalda y su punto radiante (Subtext Recordings) on March 1, 2024. More at isabelcrespo.com
Jaime Díaz
Jaime (they) is a sound artist and academic who specializes in experimental sounds. They are based in Glasgow, UK, but originally from Colorado, US. Over the past 10 years, Jaime has worked across theatre, dance, film, and the concert stage, and have gained experience in the US, Canada, UK, and Ghana.
Some of Jaime's recent commissions include Señora de las Sombras premiered at sound fest 2022, Pink Cloud Ballade premiered by the Sheffield Clarinet Choir in 2023, and Three distant moods, commissioned and recorded by Devan Jaquez in 2020. At the 2023 PLUG Festival Jaime had two premiers including statues of bone flowers, performed by the GAIA duo, and voiceless and brown performed with Stephanie Lamprea and Calum Huggan. Huw Morgan premiered an eternity in one second as part of his Mainly Slow Organ Music series in February 2024. Jaime continues to have an active academic presence whilst presenting papers at Shared Narratives 2024 and The F-List Research Conference 2024.
Sebastián Zubieta
Sebastián Zubieta is an Argentine composer and the conductor of the critically acclaimed vocal ensemble Meridionalis, a group dedicated to early and contemporary music from the Americas, with which he has appeared in NYC, Bogotá, Havana, Quito, and Buenos Aires. The group released its debut album on NAXOS in 2019, dedicated to the music of Pablo Ortiz. He most recently conducted Meridionalis in the NYC premiere of Claude Vivier’s opera Kopernikus following the production’s successful South American premiere in Buenos Aires (August 2018). He has written music for ICE, the CETC, the Centro Cultural General San Martín, the New York Miniaturist Ensemble, pianist Stephen Buck, the Bugallo Williams Piano Duo, and the Damocles Trio. Zubieta’s chamber opera MadreÁmbar, based on the medieval tale Aucassin et Nicolette, premiered online at the Festival de Nueva Ópera de Buenos Aires in 2020. His music has also been performed in Europe, Korea, Latin America, and the U.S., by musicians including Continuum Ensemble, the Momenta Quartet, violist Antoine Tamestit, and clarinetist Joshua Rubin.
Zubieta has taught at universities in Argentina and the US and has presented papers on baroque and contemporary music at congresses including the International Musicological Society (2002, 2014, and 2017, 2022), Society for American Music (2011), and Latin American Studies Association Conference (2015 and 2016). Sebastián holds a doctorate in composition from Yale and a licentiate in musicology from Universidad Católica Argentina. Born in Buenos Aires, he has been Music Director at Americas Society since 2005.
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