Miguel GáLVEZ-TARONCHER

• compulsory work (final round), Piano 2007
  
• 1st prize, Composition 2006
  La Luna y la Muerte

Miguel Gálvez-Taroncher is the winner of the Queen Elisabeth Composition Competition 2006, of the Spanish College in Paris Prize and the 1st Intercultural Composition Prize Onix in Mexico.
Born in Valencia (Spain) in 1974, Miguel Gálvez-Taroncher grew up in a flourishing musical environment. At just five years of age, his vocation as a composer already began to take shape and he produced his first creative efforts. He studied piano, harmony and composition at the Amaniel Conservatory in Madrid, where his encounters with Enrique Blanco and Luis de Pablo were decisive. At the age of 20 he continued his studies at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna, where he was taught by Michael Jarrell. The time spent there allowed him to develop a personal language and to discover the wealth of today's musical world.
Emboldened by these experiences, he founded a group (Gegenklang) with some colleagues,with a view to putting on concerts and premiering their own works. Among these early compositions were Alea, Nodos, Cristal Oscuro, Sphera, El Velo and Cantos Nocturnos.
In 1998 he graduated in composition and was awarded the Honor Prize by the Austrian Ministry of Education and Science. That same year, thanks to a grant from the Nippon Foundation, he travelled to Japan for performances of Poemas de la ladera este, for voice and piano, based on poems by Octavio Paz.
Back in Spain, he composed Strahlung, as well as Ficciones and Tossal, both commissioned by the Hörgange Festival in Austria. In 2001 he composed Telar, his first symphonic work, which was performed by the RTVE Symphony Orchestra. The following year he was commissioned to write a Concerto for Bass Clarinet and Ensemble, which was performed in Schwaz at the Klangspuren Festival and opened a new, more mature and committed period of creativity.
In 2003 Wien Modern programmed his work inspired by the poems of Jaime Sabines, as part of the collective composition Levels. Similarly, the Die Reihe Ensemble premiered his first string quartet, El Sueño Eterno, commissioned by the Austrian Radio Symphony Orchestra. A number of new works were premiered the following year, including Ecipse, El Gran Inquisidor and Mondszene, for piano and electronics, based on the poetry of Federico García Lorca.
In 2005 Miguel Gálvez-Taroncher taught composition at the Royal Conservatory in Granada. It was there that Noche de Sollozos for mezzo-soprano and orchestra was born, at the request of the Orchestre des Jeunes de la Méditerranée. This work was performed in Istres and at the Festival de La Roque d'Anthéron. In 2007 he was commissioned by the Valencian Institute of Music to write a piece for the Arditti Quartet and also by the Centro para la Difusión de la Música Contemporánea to write a new piece for the Festival de Alicante (Spain). He has been composer in residence of the Valencia Region Young Orchestra having premiered in 2008 his first violin concerto with Irvine Arditti as soloist and the Concerto for Orchestra conducted by Manuel Galduf.
Presently he writes a piece for the prestigious Trio Arbos which will be premiered at the Semana de Música Reigiosa 2009 de Cuenca (Spain).

LA LUNA Y LA MUERTE
Miguel Gálvez-Taroncher’s work for piano and symphony orchestra was inspired by Federico García Lorca’s poem La Luna y la Muerte. The line ‘está la luna loca’ (‘the moon is mad’) gave rise to a short, direct theme that permeates the entire work, via a series of variations. The musical development, however, is purely abstract; this is not programme music. The duality of García Lorca’s title is reflected in the alternation of two main ideas, one dedicated to the moon, the other invoking death. A lengthy cadenza plays a key role in the work’s first movement. This cadenza is in two parts: the first is traditional and is played by solo piano; the other is in a recitative style, accompanied by the orchestra. The same duality can also be seen in the orchestration of the two ideas. In the first it is conceived as an ensemble of very varied timbres; in the second the orchestration is made up of denser textures, but with more subtle dynamics. From this tangle of motifs emerges an infinite melody that leads to a long final morendo.

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