Name Arturo Rodas | Role Composer | |
Education Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris | ||
Tutti frutti for tape and piano by arturo rodas
Arturo Rodas (3 March 1954 in Quito) is an Ecuadorian-born French-citizen composer.
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Biography
Rodas studied at the National Conservatory in Quito, took private composition lessons with Gerardo Guevara, and also graduated in Law at the Universidad Central del Ecuador. Between 1978 and 1980 he was assistant to the French composer Jose Berghmans in Quito and Paris. He studied at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris from 1979-84. There he graduated in counterpoint (Ginette Keller's class) and composition with Yoshihisa Taira as his mentor. In 1983 he attended a composition course with Luciano Berio. He also studied electroacoustic music with Mesias Maiguashca (CERM in Metz) and with Phil Wachsmann in London. He has attended short courses at the IRCAM in Paris. While in Paris he also attended courses given in several institutions by Michele Reverdy, Pierre Boulez, Gerard Grisey, Guy Reibel and Iannis Xenakis.
He returned to Ecuador in 1984 where some of his orchestral works were performed by the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alvaro Manzano. In Ecuador he became one of the three "notable composers of the following generations". The Banco Central del Ecuador issued a two-disk recording of Rodas works in 1988 as volume one of the series Compositores ecuatorianos contemporaneos. Included are Fibris, along with Arcaica, Climax, Andino III, iOh. ...!, Mordente, Espacios Invertidos".
"Arturo Rodas championed a contemporary, universal musical style within his country. A number of his works from this period, such as his aleatoric orchestral piece Fibris (1986), were published in Opus, a music magazine that Rodas co-edited. Since emigrating to England in 1990, he has composed works such as The Book of the Orchestra (2002-2003) which is intended to be performed in a house with many rooms so as to allow an “audience” to hear different instrumental groups as they wander from room to room". He has travelled back to Ecuador for concert and teaching activities. He has also worked as a music critic, editor and concert organiser. Rodas's works are published by Periferia Music (Barcelona) and Virtualscore (Paris).
Patterns: personal vision of his sources (Andino I-Andino IV, Laudico); sound-mass polyphony (Entropia, Arcaica); aleatorism (Fibris, Ramificaciones Temporales); formal research (Obsesiva, La, Melodias de Camara); and unavoidably the meeting point of patterns ("24.5 Preludios for piano", the "Atonal Fugues" and the opera "El Arbol de los Pajaros"). In that work the plot stems from the interaction music - architecture.
Audio: Piece of Cake Suite in 4 movements, for piano & cd. Pianist: Francis Yang