Pedro Alvarez es un compositor, improvisador y docente chileno radicado en Australia. Su trabajo creativo se enfoca en nuevas formas de narrativa sonora a partir de situaciones contemplativas y texturas altamente detalladas, tanto en la composición para diversos medios instrumentales, como en la improvisación con quenas y otros aerófonos de fabricación propia. Sus intereses incluyen estética y política, tradiciones musicales de los Andes, perspectivas anti-coloniales, y teoría crítica.
Alvarez estudió composición con Cirilo Vila en Santiago, con James Dillon en Londres, y con Liza Lim en Huddersfield, obteniendo su doctorado en composición en Inglaterra en 2014. Además ha completado estudios de postgrado en Australia, especializándose en salud mental.
Pedro Alvarez ha sido invitado como compositor en residencia en Viena y México, y ha recibido numerosos encargos de festivales y ensembles internacionales. Alvarez ha trabajado como académico en varias universidades de Chile y Australia. Adicionalmente a sus proyectos musicales, trabaja actualmente en el área de salud mental comunitaria en Perth.
Grounded on an extraordinarily deep musical knowledge and an equally wide range of cultural experiences, the work of Pedro Alvarez escapes easy labels and categories. His music emerges from a disciplined improvisation practice, which doesn’t overlook careful examination of its materials, forms, cultural origins and social dynamics.
A composer and multi-instrumentalist improviser, Pedro studied music composition in Chile and the UK. He obtained a Master of Philosophy at Goldsmiths University of London, and a PhD under Liza Lim at the University of Huddersfield’s Centre for Research in New Music, receiving ‘The Vice-Chancellors’s Award to an Outstanding Research Degree Thesis’ in 2014.
Several scholarships and residencies have allowed Pedro to develop his musical work, learning, teaching, creating and performing in places like London, Mexico, Vienna, and Barcelona, as well as travelling through Chile, Bolivia and Peru to trace cultural threads of his Andean heritage.
Pedro has taught music at universities in Chile and Australia, also giving guest lectures and facilitating workshops in other countries. He currently combines independent musical projects with work in community mental health in Perth.
Festivals in which my music has been played so far
Impuls 2011 (Austria)
ISCM World Music Days 2012 (Belgium)
Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik 2013 (Germany)
Connect Festival 2013 (Sweden)
ME_MMIX 2013 (Spain)
ANODE 2014 (USA)
Festival Contrasti 2014 & 2017 (Italy)
Festival Mixtur 2015 (Spain) **Commission 2015.
Festival Musicahora 2015 (Chile)
Sound of Stockholm 2015 (Sweden)
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2013, 2014 & 2015 (UK) **Commission 2014.
Festival de Música Contemporánea UC 2004, 2005, 2006, 2013, 2016 & 2021 (Chile)
Sampler Sèries 2014 & 2016 (Spain)
BIFEM 2016 (Australia)
Totally Huge New Music Festival 2017 (Australia)
Festival Darwin Vargas 2018 (Chile)
Twin Cities New Music Festival 2018 (USA)
Festival Vértice 2018 (Mexico)
Tilde New Music Week 2019 (Australia)
Brisbane Music Festival 2019 (Australia)
Signal to Noise 0.1 2021 (Italy)
eviMus 2021 (Germany)
Brisbane Music Festival 2019 & 2024 (Australia)
Audible Edge 2022 (Australia)
“Alvarez’s treatment of the material is akin to sculpting, with shifts in perspective that offer new insights into the composition’s elusive core.”
– Eduardo Cossio, RealTime #136, Dec-Jan 2017.
“On stage its longeurs are forgotten, and its subtle shifts in rhythm and texture are well-judged to maintain a sense of inquisitive experiment.”
– Tim Rutherford-Johnson, The Rambler, 18 Feb 2013.
“Pedro Alvarez’s Instead (2013) comes close for creating something distinctly different from a typical solo clarinet work – odd blocks that nod towards minimalism and Zorn, if anything, although that isn’t giving much away.”
– Tim Rutherford-Johnson, The Rambler, 30 Sep 2016.
“Challenging to the point of wilful oddity.” (Whatever that may mean)
– Simon Cummings, 5against4, Nov 2014.
“One can imagine ejected fragments, fragments of a dissolved music, now captured by the ensemble.” (Original in Swedish)
– Roland Horovitz, Nutida Musik, 23 Dec 2015.
“Inherent Nodes evolves within a relative temporality (…) which gives a sense of slightly fluctuating tempo, of a certain elasticity, besides the multiplicity in its different layers. In our opinion, the highlight in this work is its asserting not indeterminate music, but rather a different and refreshed form of determinacy.” (Original in Spanish)
– Mauricio Gómez Gálvez, Resonancias, No.39, Jul-Nov 2016.
“Then two enormous instruments enter the scene, these are baritone saxophones, to perform “Untitled on canvas” by Pedro Alvarez. The two sounds, very velvety in the middle register, combine marvellously to highlight an intertwined, subtle and charming counterpoint. One would think, by the ear, of two turbulent lion cubs devoting themselves to their feline games.” (Original in French)
– Nikola Lutz, concerts-paris-jlp, June 2013.
“The work is imposing upon listening, due to both its iterative global character, and its iridescent, creaking sonority of great expressiveness. Like in previous works by the composer, this one invites into a deeper listening, from which a logics of micro-variation emerges that can remain hidden if we conform to first impressions. Two large sections, determined by the use of cymbals (first bowed, then with mallet) frame a microtonal music that attends to the acoustic properties of both instruments.” (Original in Spanish)
– Mauricio Gómez Gálvez, Resonancias, No.45, Jul-Nov 2019.