Hilda Paredes
Firmly established as one of the leading Mexican composers of her generation, she has made her home in London since 1979 and her music is now performed widely around the world at major international festivals by prominent international ensembles and soloists.
She has been critically acclaimed by the press as “a composer with a fresh aural imagination” (The Guardian) and “admired for compositions that mix modernist rigor and extended techniques with a primal energy rooted in Maya lore” (NY Times).
After studying at the Conservatoire in Mexico City with Mario Lavista, she was an active participant in master classes at Dartington Summer School, studied with Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle and Richard Rodney Bennett. After graduating at the Guildhall School of Music, she obtained her Master of Arts at City University in London and completed her PhD at Manchester University.
Hilda continues to be involved in the musical life of her native country as a composer and teacher and was also a radio producer of new music. There is a testimony of a constant collaboration with Mexican poets and artists in her works and her music has been acclaimed by the critics for the refinement of her craft, marked by the intensity of the relationship between time, dramatic force and poetical approach.
“whilst living in London and rooted in the contemporary European music, echoes of pre-colonial Central American cultures surfaces in her music, as well as a very definite essential strength channeled towards a refined and sensitive music always poetically framed”. Mundo clásico 2016
She has been recipient of important awards, such as the PRS Foundation and the Arts Council of Great Britain fellowship for composers, J.S. Guggenheim Fellowship in the USA and is currently a member of Sistema Nacional de Creadores, in Mexico.
Hilda has been commissioned by soloists, ensembles and orchestras around the world. Her music has been performed by internationally renowned ensembles such as Trio Arbós, Arditti Quartet, Aventure, Court Circuit, Ensemble Intercontemporain, L’Instant donné, Hilliard Ensemble, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble Signal, Grup Instrumental de Valencia, ICE, London Sinfonietta, Lontano, The New Julliard Ensemble, Neue Vocalsolisten, Ensamble Sospeso, Psappha, Ensemble Phoenix Basle, MDi Ensemble, Orchestra di l’Arena de Verona, RTE amongst others. Her music has been widely performed at important international festivals, such as Huddersfield Contemporary Music and Edinburgh Festival in the UK; Eclat and Ultraschall in Germany; Festival D’Automne a Paris, Musica and Octobre en Normandie, in France; Wien Modern, Klangspuren in Austria; Akiyoshidai and Takefu Music Festivals, in Japan; Archipel and Music monat , in Switzerland; De Ijsbreker Chamber Music Festival, in Amsterdam; Warsaw Autumn, in Poland; Ultima, in Oslo; Melbourne Festival, in Australia; Festival of Arts and Ideas in the USA, Ars Musica in Bruxelles; Festival de Alicante, Festival de Música Religiosa de Cuenca and ENSEMS Festival, in Spain; Festival Internacional Cervantino in Mexico, amongst others.
As a freelance lecturer, Hilda has taught composition and lectured at Manchester University, the University of San Diego California, University of Buffalo and other prestigious Universities in the US, at Centre Acanthes in France and in 2007 was appointed the Darius Milhuad Visiting Professor at Mills College in the US. In 2011, she was visiting professor at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya in Barcelona and in the 2015 Spring term at Dartmouth College in the US. She recently returned to Mills College as the as the Jean Macduff Vaux Composer-in-Residence, where a portrait concert of her chamber music was performed at the Littlefield Concert Hall.