Biography of Alberto Carretero

Alberto Carretero (Seville, 1985) studied Composition with an Extraordinary Final Year Award at the “Manuel Castillo” Superior Conservatory of Music in Seville under the tutelage of Luis Ignacio Marín, Antonio José Flores and Juan Antonio Pedrosa. He is a Senior Computer Engineer with an Extraordinary Award, a Graduate in Music History and Sciences, a Graduate in Journalism with an Extraordinary Award, a Postgraduate in Musical Composition, an Official Master's Degree in Musical Creation and Performance and a Doctor of Arts (Music) with Distinction Cum Laude unanimously and Extraordinary Doctorate Award for his thesis on bio-inspired musical composition with artificial intelligence techniques. He has been part of the Computational Topology Research Group at the University of Seville and has directed numerous research projects in various higher education centers.

Among the awards obtained, the most notable are obtaining the Leonardo Scholarship from the BBVA Foundation (Music and Opera) on two occasions, the Caja Madrid Award - “Andaluces del Futuro”, the “Injuve” Contemporary Music Composition Award, the “Real Maestranza” awarded by HM The King of Spain, the Second Prize for Orchestral Composition “Antón García Abril” (Madrid), the “Young Composers” Prize from PluralEnsemble, the “City of Seville” Prize from the Seville city council, the SGAE Symphonic Commission Prize -AEOS, Ensemble Flashback Perpignan Award, second prize of the Social Council Award of the Rey Juan Carlos University and the Young Seville Award of the Ministry of the Presidency of the Junta de Andalucía. In addition, he has been a finalist for the “Niccolò Castiglioni and “San Fedele” Composition Prizes (Milan), the “Carmelo Bernaola” Prize (Madrid), the Città di Udine Composition Prize, the Ensemble Écoute Composition Prize and the Pavilion of Composition Prize. Italy from Expo 2015 in Milan.

He has specialized in Spain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland with the masters Christopher Halffter, Jose Maria Sanchez-Verdu, Maurice Sotelo, Jose Manuel Lopez Lopez, Hector Parra, Jesus Wheel, Thomas Marco, Luis de Pablo, Elena Mendoza , Alberto Posadas, Caesar Waiter, Augustine Charles, Brian Ferneyhough, Martin Matalon, Beat Furrer, Kaija Saariaho, Philippe Hurel, Salvatore Sciarrino, Stefano Gervasoni, Helmut Lachenmann, Alessandro Solbiati, Johannes Schöllhorn, Ivan Fedele, Georges Aperghis, Rebecca Saunders, Tea Czernowin, Mark Andrew, Thierry de Mey, etc.

His music has been performed at Carnegie Hall in New York, Pompidou Center (Paris), CentQuatre (Paris), Royaumont Abbey (France), National Music Auditorium in Madrid, Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, Ran Baron Hall in Tel Aviv , “San Fedele” Auditorium in Milan, Espacio Turina, Teatro Central in Seville, Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville, San Giovanni Valdarno Festival in Florence, Sibelius Academy in Helsinki (Tenso Network), Fonderie Kugler in Geneva, Casa della Musica in Parma , León International Organ Festival, Darmstadt International Course, Spanish Music Festival (Cádiz), Crículo de Bellas Artes (Madrid), Wien Modern (Odeon Theater Vienna), Venice Biennale, Juan March Foundation (Madrid), Mostra Sonora of Sueca, Teatro Talía in Valencia, Teatro Villamarta in Jerez de la Frontera, etc. His projects also include collaborations with other performing and visual arts. He has worked with Klangforum Wien, Musikfabrik, Ensemble Recherche, Phace, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Royal Seville Symphony Orchestra, SWR Stutgart Orchestra, Bética Chamber Orchestra, Plural Ensemble, Meitar Ensemble, Taller Sonoro, Barcelona216, Neopercusión, Cosmos21, Sax-Ensemble , Helsinki Chamber Choir - Tenso, Klara Tomljanovic, PHACE, Ensemble Mise-EN New York, Raquel Andueza, Asier Polo, Manuel Blanco, Juanjo Guillem, Philippe Spiesser, Eva Reiter, Domenico Melchiorre, Pedro Rojas, OCNOS, Constantinople, dissonArt Ensemble, Vertixe Sonora, Zahir Ensemble, El Perro Andaluz Ensemble, Daniel Oyarzábal, Ryoko Aoki, Johanna Vargas (Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart), Nacho de Paz, Mario Prisuelos, Grup Instrumental de València, Dhamar, Ensemble Shallfeld, Alberto Rosado, Alfonso Padilla, S' ensemble, etc. His works have been recorded by Verso, Tañidos, La Mà de Guido, Columna Música, Revista Sibila, Protomaterial, Radio Nacional de España and Radio Círculo. In the 2023/2024 season, the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville has scheduled the world premiere of its opera "La Bella Susona", for singers, orchestra, choir and electronics. In 2025, the premiere of his chamber opera "Poet in New York" is scheduled, the result of a Leonardo Scholarship from the BBVA Foundation.

In the field of new technologies, he has held the Chair of Musical Technology and composed electroacoustic music for the International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Seville, the “Night of the Museums” in Seville, the “Night of the Books” in Madrid, “ In Sonora” from Madrid and “Phonos” from Barcelona. He has participated in the Manifeste Festival and the International Congress of Digital Audio Effects at IRCAM (Paris), as well as in the Matrix festival at SWR ExperimentalStudio in Freiburg, Amsterdam and Warsaw. He has been a speaker at the International Congress of Music and Technologies at the University of Seville and a professor at the Royal Conservatory of Music of Madrid. He is the author of several books and research articles on composition, analysis and musical technology, as well as a frequent guest professor at conferences, congresses, seminars and master classes. He is currently Professor of Composition by competitive examination at the “Manuel Castillo” Superior Conservatory of Music in Seville.