ALBERTO CARRETERO
COMMISSIONED WORK
With a polyhedral background in Composition, Musicology, Piano, Computer Engineering and Journalism, he holds a Doctorate in Arts with an Extraordinary Doctorate Prize for his thesis on bio-inspired composition and artificial intelligence. Trained with masters such as Cristóbal Halffter, Tomás Marco, José María Sánchez-Verdú, José Manuel López López and Mauricio Sotelo, he has received numerous national and international awards, including recognition with the BBVA Foundation’s Leonardo Scholarship on two occasions.
His music has been performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall and the National Opera Center (New York), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Auditorio Nacional de Música and Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid), Espacio Turina and Teatro de la Maestranza (Seville), Wien Modern Festival (Vienna), Musica Festival (Strasbourg), Venice Biennale, Asian Saxophone Conference (Taiwan), Ran Baron Hall (Tel Aviv), Prisms Festival (Arizona), etc.
He has worked with Klangforum Wien, Musikfabrik, Ensemble Recherche, PHACE, Ensemble Intercontemporain, IRCAM, SWR ExperimentalStudio, ROSS, SWR Orchestra Stuttgart, Trio Arbós, PluralEnsemble, Neopercusión, Zahir Ensemble, Taller Sonoro, OCNOS, CODICE, etc.
He has recently premiered three opera titles: Renacer (video-opera), La Bella Susona (large-scale opera) and Poeta en Nueva York (chamber opera). His music regularly builds bridges with other performing and visual arts, as well as technologies.
He is the author of several books and research articles on composition, analysis and music technology, as well as a regular guest lecturer at conferences, congresses, seminars and masterclasses.
He has taught at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid and is currently Professor of Composition at the Conservatorio Superior de Música ‘Manuel Castillo’ in Seville.
His upcoming projects include the premiere in the 2026/2027 season of a concerto for piano and orchestra by the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla and Juan Carlos Garvayo, pianist of the Trío Arbós (National Music Prize), under the baton of maestra Shiyeon Sung.
About the work
The piece has its roots in the valuable Spanish and Andalusian musical heritage, through the well-known ‘zéjel’ Tres morillas m’enamoran related to Jaen and bordering love romances. Of Arabic origin in the 9th century, it was transmitted orally at a time of deep social and cultural transformations, in analogy to the times we live in today. Subsequently, it was collected in writing in the 16th century in two versions in the Cancionero Musical de Palacio, with different interpretations and ambiguities in its symbolism that make the text and the music a suggestive source of inspiration for the composition. Starting from this rich tradition as nourishment, a new universe of sound emerges through the sounds of the piano which, with resonances, musical gestures and unusual timbres, aim to dialogue with the past, but always looking to the future with a continuous need of reinvention and projecting hope.
