Alicia Díaz-de la Fuente is a composer, recipient of the 2022 Spanish National Music Prize for Composition, holds a PhD in Philosophy, and is Professor of Composition at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid.

Her concern for timbre and sonic subtlety underpins her artistic thinking. As Álvaro Guibert observed in 1997 following the premiere of her work Ecos del pensamiento, her music has “timbral subtlety as its principal weapon, (…) beautiful, slender and fragile music.” In a review of her work Nadiyama, J. M. Rodríguez Amaro wrote: “spectral in outline and subtly expressive, exquisite in its handling of a crystalline sonic density.” Daniel Huschert likewise spoke of “subtle impressions” in reference to JONDE’s performance of her orchestral work Llueven estrellas en el mar at the Konzerthaus Berlin during the Young Euro Classic Festival.

Regarding the premiere of her orchestral work Y la mañana se llenó de luz, Tomás Marco described a musical language “masterfully structured and of great sonic beauty, exuding sensitivity, refinement and, above all, undeniable value.” Arturo Reverter, for his part, described Díaz de la Fuente as “a figure who has already established herself at a very high level in the field” and her music as a space filled with “ethereal evocations emerging from nothingness, iridescence, expectant silences [that] come together in a carefully crafted language, fashioned with the skill of a goldsmith.”

Deeply interested in poetry, one of the most significant features of her work is the relationship between sound and words. This is reflected in the many compositions in which poetry and music converge, such as Les prétemps du monde, La face de la vérité and Le nuage des rêveurs, based on poems by the Senegalese poet L. S. Senghor, or Siluetas sobre fondo de silencio, En el azul and Color de invierno, based on poems by Rafael Santos Barba. On other occasions, the composer’s own poems merge with her music, as in Ecos del pensamiento, Redes al tiempo, Bajo el silencio and Bedankt!

Díaz-de la Fuente was born in Madrid, where she studied Organ and Composition at the Royal Conservatory of Music. In 2005, she earned a PhD in Philosophy from UNED. She also attended courses in Composition and Musical Analysis with Luis de Pablo, S. Sciarrino, B. Ferneyhough, T. Murail, G. Grisey and H. Lachenmann, among others, as well as organ performance courses with H. Meister, J. Savall and M. Radulescu, performing concerts in Spain and abroad. She subsequently pursued further organ studies in Barcelona with Montserrat Torrent. At the University of Alcalá de Henares, she continued her composition studies, working for four years under José Luis de Delás. In Paris, she attended composition and computer music courses at IRCAM with M.-A. Dalbavie, J. Harvey and R. Reynolds, among others.

Among her notable works are: Ecos del pensamiento (second prize, SGAE, 1995); En el azul (INAEM commission, 1995); Siluetas sobre fondo de silencio (INAEM Prize, 1997); Elde (Aujourd’hui Musiques Festival, 2000); El destino de Euterpe (Ensemble Télémaque commission, 2002); Redes al tiempo (CDMC commission, 2002); Aymará (Tres Cantos International Festival commission, 2007); La noche en ti no alterna (OCNE América-España Festival commission, 2008); Nadiyama (27th Alicante Music Festival, 2011); Bedankt! (52nd Cuenca Religious Music Week, 2013); Llueven estrellas en el mar (JONDE conducted by Pablo González, Konzerthaus Berlin, 2018); the chamber piece Más allá del horizonte (2019), included on the monographic CD “Alicia Díaz de la Fuente. Sonido y palabra”; the orchestral work Y la mañana se llenó de luz (OCNE commission, 2020); the ensemble work Rumor de nubes (CNDM commission, 2022); Los acantilados de Jaizkibel (JONDE commission, 2022); Cuando el mármol susurra (OCNE commission for the Satélites series, 2022); and Resonancias sobre la Folía de España (OCNE commission for the concert marking the close of Spain’s Presidency of the EU in December 2023).

Her teaching career has centred on her position as Professor of Composition, teaching Composition and Analysis of Contemporary Music at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid since 2001. She has been part of the “Doctoral Programme in Music and its Science and Technology” at the Polytechnic University of Madrid since 2018. She also taught at the Escola de Altos Estudos Musicais of the University of Santiago de Compostela from 2021 to 2025; on the Bachelor’s Degree in Musical Performance at Alfonso X el Sabio University, Faculty of Music and Performing Arts, from 2013 to 2021, and on the same university’s Master’s Degree in Orchestral Conducting from 2016 to 2021; on the Master’s Degree in Orchestral Performance at the International University of Andalusia / Barenboim-Said Foundation in Seville from 2013 to 2016; at the Salamanca Higher Conservatory of Music (Aesthetics Seminar) from 2003 to 2008; on the Master’s Degree in Musical Creation and Performance at Rey Juan Carlos University, Madrid and Granada campuses, from 2009 to 2013; at the Joaquín Turina Professional Conservatory of Music in Madrid from 1993 to 2001; and at the Arturo Soria Professional Conservatory of Music from 1991 to 1993.

As an author of studies on Musical Analysis and Aesthetics, she has published articles including: “In Search of Subtlety” (ISSN 2659-8531); “María Eugenia Luc, or the Murmur of Sound” (ISBN 9788419598622, 8419598623); “Antón García Abril: The Music of Emotion” (ISSN 2659-8531); “José Luis de Delás, or Creative Ethics from Exile” (ISSN 1134-8615, e-ISSN 2660-4582); “Analysis and Linguistic Indeterminacy: The Case of John Cage” (ISBN 978-84-122419-7-6); “The Sound of Kaija Saariaho” (ISSN 0541-4040); “Analytical Notes on Carme Fernández Vidal’s Piano Piece Eguzkilore” (ISBN 978-84-96814-85-1); “A Look at Alberto Posadas’s Cripsis” (ISBN 978-84-9982-816-9); “Mallarmé’s Music, Debussy’s Poetry: A Fascinating Journey Between Suggestion and Symbol” (ISSN 0541-4040); “György Ligeti: A Builder of Dreams” (legal deposit M 30492-96); “From Virtual Space to Sonic Ubiquity” (ISSN 0541-4040); and “The Influence of Anton Webern’s Music on the European Musical Avant-Garde of the 1950s” (ISSN 1134-8615), among others. She is currently completing a book of analyses of 21st-century music.

She has also given courses and lectures related to her research in Analysis, Aesthetics and Contemporary Music at various universities and higher education institutions, including the Menéndez Pelayo International University, the International University of Andalusia, the University of Alcalá de Henares, the Autonomous University of Madrid, the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart, the Complutense University of Madrid, the International University of Valencia, the Victoria Eugenia Higher Conservatory of Music in Granada and the Manhattan School of Music, among others.

As a composer, she has received numerous commissions from institutions including the National Institute of Performing Arts and Music (INAEM) of the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sport, the National Centre for Musical Dissemination (CNDM), the Spanish National Orchestra and Choir (OCNE), Fundación Autor–AEOS, the Spanish National Youth Orchestra (JONDE), the Tres Cantos Festival, the Alicante Music Festival and the Valldemossa Festival, among others.

She has received various composition awards, including the Flora Prieto Prize (1992), the Jacinto e Inocencio Guerrero Foundation Prize (1993), the SGAE Second Prize (1995), the INAEM Composition Prize (1997), the Ministry of Culture’s Musical Creation Awards (1995) and the Spanish National Music Prize (2022), among others.

She has served on composition competition juries, including those for the INAEM Musical Composition Prize, the Queen Sofía Composition Prize, the Flora Prieto Prize, the Fundación Autor Composition Competition and the AEOS Composition Grants, among others.