Newcastle University

Introduction

I am a composer interested in music with cultural resonance, which is aware of the creative and performative traditions it is part of but which also seeks to extend the horizons of expression and technique beyond well-tried territories.

If this were myspace I would tell you who I like, but since it is not let me tell you what I like: I am for innovation, universality and passion. I am against dogma, purity and tedium.

Background

Prof Agustín Fernández obtained his PhD at City University, specialising in Composition. Before that, he completed an MMus at The University of Liverpool and a Licentiate’s degree at the Bolivian Catholic University. In between, he spent three years in Japan, studying composition with Takashi Iida and with Akira Ifukube, and also training as a violinist with Takeshi Kobayashi. His research interest is composition. Wider interests include contemporary music, Afrocuban music and popular Latin American music.

Recent compositional success include the première of String Quartet No. 1 'Montes' by the Momenta Quartet at Rock Hall Auditorium, Philadelphia, last November, and the two performances of Mystical Dances by Northern Sinfonia, last November at the 2006 Huddersfield Festival and last August at The Sage Gateshead. Prior to that, Approaching Melmoth, a work for baritone, choir and orchestra, was performed in March 2000 by Sir Thomas Allen with the Northern Sinfonia Chorus and Orchestra, conducted by Nicholas Cleobury. (‘Some of the most startlingly effective and original choral writing you’re likely to encounter’ – The Journal.) The good reception afforded to Approaching Melmoth has given fresh impetus to a more ambitious project on the same topic, the opera Melmoth the Wanderer, to which Prof Fernández expects to devote his efforts for the next few years.

His catalogue includes opera, orchestral, chamber and electroacoustic music. Most of his works have received high-profile performances in Europe and the Americas. Danza de la loma has been recorded and broadcast by the BBC Symphony and also performed and broadcast by the Ulster Orchestra and by Orquesta de Cadaqués. Fuego has received its US première by The Juilliard Symphony at Lincoln Center, a venue which also saw the first performance of Peregrine by the New Juilliard Ensemble in 1997 and of its revised version in 2005. Fuego has also been played by Orchestra Sinfonia di Perugia and most recently by Orquesta de Castilla y León in three successful concerts in Valladolid and Salamanca in May 2007.

The opera The Wheel, commissioned by the Royal Opera House’s Garden Venture, was performed five times at Riverside Studios by the Garden Venture with Endymion Ensemble in 1993. The London International Opera Festival featured the electroacoustic opera Teoponte in 1988.

Other electroacoustic works include Wounded Angel for charango and electronic sounds, which is available from NMC records in a recording by the composer, and on dB Productions recorded by Stefan Östersjö, and Silent Towers, which has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and on European radio stations, and is also available from Lontano Records. Both works have received performances at London’s South Bank.

The last few years saw premières of Trío in Bolivia, of A Hidden Music and Mystical Dances in Britain, of the song cycle Alquimia in Barcelona and of the completed version of A to Z in Stockholm. There were also performances of revised versions of Botanic Spider by members of Northern Sinfonia and by Mr McFall's Chamber, and of Peregrine by New Juilliard Ensemble at Lincoln Center and by Northern Sinfonia at The Sage Gateshead. The first quarter of this year saw the première of Munirando II at the Schott Recital Room by Darragh Morgan and Mary Dullea in London, and a performance of Danza de la loma by Orquesta de Cadaqués in Zaragoza.

Prof Fernández's orchestral works are published by Tritó of Barcelona, and his guitar music by Tre Media of Karlsruhe.

Prof Fernández’s compositional research focuses on the integration of a cultural multiplicity into a language which invokes the European classical canon while challenging it. Earlier stages of his career - folk musician, orchestral player, harmony teacher, even language instructor – provide the background for a diversity in search of integration. His current technical explorations pursue harmonic processes that extend tonality in ways which are aurally traceable, rhythmic and textural schemes that promote continuity, and the use of standard instrumentations in such a way as to reflect the influence of electroacoustic and folkloric sonorities.

Roles and Responsibilities

Composer, lecturer in Composition and supervisor of postgraduate studies in Composition. Director of Research Degrees.

Qualifications

PhD (City), MMus (Liverpool), Licenciado (Universidad Católica de La Paz)

Previous Positions

Dartington College of Arts, Lecturer in Composition (1994-5)
The Queen's University of Belfast, Composer in Residence (1990-1994)
Municipal Chamber Orchestra of La Paz, Co-leader (1983-4)
Komagane Training Institute, Language Instructor (1982-3)
Embassy of Bolivia in Japan, Private Secretary to the Ambassador(1981-2)
National Symphony of Bolivia, Principal viola (1976-80)
National Conservatory, Harmony Teacher (1977-80)

Memberships

PRS
Peer Review College, AHRC

Honours and Awards

Hamlyn Bursary for participation in Dartington Summer School's music-theatre course (1991)

FCO award for postgraduate studies in the United Kingdom (1984-1987)

JICA award for studies in Japan (1980-1981)

Honor al Mérito, Prefectura de Cochabamba (1979)

National Composition Prize Sesquicentenario de la República, La Paz, Bolivia (1975)

Charango de oro, First Prize in Interprovincial Charango Competition, Cochabamba, Bolivia (1971)

Koussevitky Commission, New York 2011 

Languages

English, Spanish, Japanese (residual), Italian (developing)

Informal Interests

Northumberland, languages, literature, fitness, dog

Research Interests

Composition

Other Expertise

Contemporary music, popular musics of Latin America, creative projects in the community

Current Work

Preparing a reconstruction of Misa de Corpus Christi, a work first performed in 1978 but now partially lost, for performances in Bolivia in 2010.

Future Research

Ongoing development of opera cycle Melmoth the Wanderer.

Research Roles

Active researcher
Member of School Research Committee
Director of Research Degrees

Postgraduate Supervision

Students who have successfully completed their PhD under Prof Fernández's supervision include Patrik Bishay from Germany, Christopher Randall from the USA and Matthew Rowan from the UK, Sergio Camacho from Spain, Joel Eriksson from Sweden and Johann Hasler from Colombia.

Helen Papaioannou has secured funding from AHRC for a PhD with Prof Fernández and is currently in the second year of her doctoral studies.

Current MMus students specialising in composition with Prof Fernández include Paul Amos and Chris McGuire.

Esteem Indicators

Appointed to the Chair in Composition at Newcastle University from 1 August 2007.

Only featured composer at the celebrations of the centennary of the National Conservatoire of La Paz, Bolivia (2007).

Signed up for publication of orchestral works with Tritó S.L. of Barcelona.

Signed up for publication of guitar works with Tre Media of Karlsruhe.

Eleven works published online by the British Music Information Centre as part of The BMIC collection (www.bmic.co.uk/collection/).

Appointed Composer in Residence at Barcelona Festival of Song 2006. Songcycle commissioned by the festival, Alquimia to be published by Mundo Arts in 2008.

Resident composer at the festival Songs Across the Americas, Bolivia, August 2003.

Artistic Co-ordinator of Music from the Chiquitos Indians of Bolivia, a project involving Emma Kirkby and Florilegium and resulting in performances at Newcastle Early Music Festival and Wigmore Hall, March 2003.

Featured composer at 2002 Encounter of Latin American Composers and Performers in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Pájaro negro for soprano and ensemble selected to close the festival.

External examiner for PhDs in Composition at Brunel University and at Goldsmiths College and Royal Holloway College, University of London.

Member of AHRC Peer Review College

Funding

Composition commissions funded by North Music Trust, Fundación Arnoldo Schwimmer, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Arts Council of Great Britain, Greater London Arts, Merseyside Arts.

Undergraduate Teaching

Creative Projects (module leader), Contemporary Compositional Techniques (module leader), Intermediate Contemporary Composition (module leader), Specialist Study Composition (module leader), Notes from Transylvania

Postgraduate Teaching

Creative Projects in Composition, Instrumental Composition: Repertoire Studies, supervision of research in composition, contributing to The Shaping of Latin America II (at the School of Modern Languages)

• Fernández A. Souvenir de Teoponte. . Vienna: James Rapport, 2012.
• Fernández A. Distant Episodes. . unpublished, 2012.
• Fernández A. String Quartet No. 2. . New York: Momenta Quartet, 2012. In Preparation.
• Fernández A. Montes. . New York: Momenta String Quartet, 2007.
• Fernández A. ¡Oh Guitarra!. . Karlsruhe: Tre Media Edition, 2009.
• Fernández A. Mystical Dances. . :Northern Sinfonia,2006.
• Fernández A. Alquimia. . Edited by Performed by Patricia Caicedo and Pau Cassan. Barcelona, 2006.
• Fernández A. A Hidden Music. . :Northern Sinfonia,2004.
• Fernández A. Botanic Spider. . Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Northern Sinfonia, 2003.
• Fernández A. Trío. . Cochabamba, Bolivia: Trío Apolo, 2003.
• Fernández A. Cantata de Navidad y Epifanía. . Gran Canaria: Coro Infantil de la Filarmónica de Gran Canaria, 2002.