Biography

Pedro Alvarez (Chile/Australia, b.1980) is a composer and improviser, mainly concerned with new forms of sonic narrative based on static situations, articulating formal simplicity in brutal contrast with highly detailed textures. After obtaining a Master in composition at Universidad de Chile, Alvarez studied privately with James Dillon in London, and later attained a MPhil from University of London and a PhD under Liza Lim at University of Huddersfield.

Composer website:  http://www.pedroalvarez.info

Featured Works

New Forms of Asymmetry, for Guitar and Ensemble.

Neither descriptive nor programmatic, the title is rather a literary ‘found object’; a serendipitous conceptual catalyst for a single episode in a larger creative quest that seeks to put form, rather than material, at the centre of aesthetic enquiries. The fragile relation between acoustic guitar and ensemble, not only in the deliberate instrumental writing but also in the different nature of their sound projection, facilitates the necessary reinvention of a ‘concertante’ dialectics.

Featured in Guitar Waves (December 2018).