Hèctor PARRA
guest composer
Composer and pianist born in Barcelona in 1976 and resident in Paris since 2002, he studied music at the Conservatory Superior of Barcelona (composition with Carles Guinovart and David Padrós and piano with M. Jesús Crespo), in Geneva with Michael Jarrell and at IRCAM with Jonathan Harvey and Brian Ferneyhough.
Hèctor Parra develops his creative activity in interaction with the visual arts, theoretical physics and evolutionary biology. His opera Hypermusic Prologue (2009) had a libretto by Lisa Randall, a prominent theoretical physicist at Harvard University, and with scenography by the English artist Matthew Ritchie. He is currently working on two stage projects with the French writer Marie NDiaye and on the opera WILDE, with a libretto by the Austrian playwright Händl Klaus.
In 2011 he was awarded the prestigious Ernst von Siemens Composition Prize (Munich), in 2007 he received the Donald Aird Memorial Prize in San Francisco and the Impuls Prize in Graz. In 2005 he unanimously won the “Tremplin” from IRCAM and in 2002 he was awarded the INAEM Musical Composition Prize. He has received commissions from the French State, the Pompidou Centre, the Berlin Academy of Arts, the City of Munich and the Munich Biennale, the Ministry of Culture, the Generalitat de Catalunya and the OBC, among other institutions. Prominent orchestras such as the Tokyo Philharmonic, the Holland Symphony, the Ensemble InterContemporain, the Brussels Philharmonic and the Barcelona and National Symphony Orchestras have performed their works in many of the main international festivals and auditoriums, such as Lucerne, Avignon, Cité de la Musique de Paris, Vienna Konzerthaus, Auditori de Barcelona, Wien Modern, Donaueschingen, Philharmonie Luxemburg, Amsterdam Muziekgebouw, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Steirischer Herbst de Graz, Stuttgart Opera House, Festival Granada International, Tokyo Suntory Hall, New York Guggenheim, etc.
His music is published by Durand Éditions Musicales/Universal Music Publishing Classical and by Tritó Edicions Musicales.
In 2013 he was appointed professor of Course Composition at IRCAM, in Paris.
He has been a professor of electroacoustic composition at the Conservatory of Aragon (2005-2011), professor of composition at the Manuel de Falla Chair in Cádiz (2010 course) and at the international course “Voix Nouvelles 2011” at the Fondation Royaumont (France).