Javier Torres Maldonado

Torres Maldonado has received an international array of honors including the Commande d'Etat by the French Ministry of Culture (2007), the international composition prize of the GRAME (Centre National de Création Musicale) of Lyon (2006), the “Reine Elisabeth” of Brussels (2004), “Alfredo Casella” of Siena (2002), “Reine Maria Jose" of Geneva (2000), “Ad Referendum II” of Montreal (1998), "Città di Barletta" (Italy), the “Prix des Musiciens” (1998) by the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Medalla Mozart from the Austrian and Mexican governments, and he also won the second prize in two successive “Mozart” Competitions in Salzburg (1999 and 2001).

In most of his works, Torres Maldonado explores innovative ways of organizing time, timbre and space. For example, in his piece for ensemble and electro-acoustic support, De Ignoto Cantu (2004), the composer presents several melody lines which, despite their complexity, actually derive from a single simple source consisting in a few number of elements; each line contains a considerable degree of horizontal-spectral consonance, but the vertical intervals and the variety of rhythmic accents in each line create a tough dissonance, both in harmony and rhythm, it is: he uses harmonic fields associated to layered pulsation patterns and metric modulation to create a sonic analog to the distorting process of reflection, “almost like a rotating lens through which the view goes in and out of focus”.

Born in Chetumal (Mexico), José Javier Torres Maldonado studied violin and composition at the Mexico City Conservatory and later, invited by Franco Donatoni, composition at the “G. Verdi” Milan Conservatory, under the supervision of Sandro Gorli and Alessandro Solbiati; he completed his postgraduate studies under Franco Donatoni, Azio Corghi (Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Accademia Musicale Chigiana) and Ivan Fedele (Conservatoire de Strasbourg). In 2003, he earned a diploma from the G. Verdi Conservatory for his work in electronic music, and in 2004 he was one of ten composers asked to participate in the Stage de Composition et Informatique Musicale at the Parisian center IRCAM.

According to Beth E. Levy, at times, Torres Maldonado exploit these complex compositional techniques to propose to the listener an openly social or political message; it is the case of one of his best known pieces, Exabrupto (1998), in which he uses complicated transitions in time and space, sudden breaks in the form and polymeters in a tribute to the memory of Mexican Indians who were assassinated in 1998 in Acteal, Chiapas.

About the triptych works Figuralmusik (1996–1998), the composer says: "it originates from the fascination that I have always felt for perceptive illusions, translated into impossible objects in physical reality, and, above all, for the results of the interlacing planes and perspectives used by Piranesi and M. C. Escher". Again contracting, expanding, intersecting and re-elaborating a limited number of fundamental musical figures, he expands the perception of musical objects through rapid or very slow juxtapositions of different temporal fluctuations.

Resident in Italy from 1996, From 2003 to 2007 he became professor in electro-acoustic composition, composition assisted by computer and composition techniques on the 20th century at the Conservatoire “A. Vivaldi” of Alessandria, Italy, and from 2007 he teaches electro-acoustic composition and electronic music at the Conservatoire "G. Verdi" of Milan. He has taught composition, composition assisted by computer, sound modelling lecturing at Trento-Riva del Garda and Monopoli Conservatoires (Italy), the Conservatoires of Lugano and Lausanne (Switzerland), and in Mexico and Spain.

Javier Torres Maldonado (born 1968) is a Mexican composer internationally recognized for, mostly, his orchestral, chamber, vocal and electro-acoustic works.