Alejandro Viñao
About this Artist
Born in 1951, Buenos Aires, Argentina. British citizen since 1994.
Alejandro Viñao studied composition in Argentina with the Russian composer Jacobo Ficher. In 1975 he continued his studies at the Royal College of Music and later at the City University in London where in 1988 he was awarded a Ph.D. in composition. Viñao has received a number of international prizes and awards including the 'Golden Nica' Prix Ars Electronica, 1st Prize at The International Rostrum at the Unesco World Music Council, The Guggenheim Fellowship in Composition and many others. Viñao's music has been played and broadcast world-wide and has been featured in international festivals such as the Tanglewood Festival and the London PROMS. His work has been presented at ‘portrait concerts’ in Japan, the USA, and Europe and his compositions has been the subject of research in universities in Europe and the USA.
He has received commissions from various performing groups and institutions around the world such as I.R.C.A.M, in France, MIT in the USA and the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Group du Researche Musical at Radio France. His opera Rashomon was commissioned by ZKM for the opening of their new building in Karlsruhe, Germany. Rashomon was later produced in Paris, London and Sweden. Viñao has worked at IRCAM in Paris at regular intervals and has been composer in residence joining the faculty staff at M.I.T. and Yale in the U.S.A, Cambridge University in the UK and other institutions.
Viñao has written music for a wide range of musical genre including opera, music- theatre, choral, orchestral, percussion and electro-acoustic compositions. He has created multimedia works, composed music for some 20 films and produced several radio programmes for the BBC. His works have been played by the English Chamber Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the London Sinfonietta, the Ensemble Modern and many other international ensembles. The Financial Times has portrayed Viñao as “a musical spirit at work” and his compositions as “pungent, original and imaginative’, and The Guardian as having an “intensely musical mind”. The Los Angeles Times has described his music as “a work of passion and freedom”.