Alicia Díaz de la Fuente is a composer, winner of the 2022 National Music Prize, phD of Philosophy and Professor of Composition at Royal Higher Conservatory of Music in Madrid.

Alicia Díaz de la Fuente has been developing her compositional work since the 1990s. Her concern for timbre and sound subtlety underpin her artistic thinking. As Álvaro Guibert said in 1997 on the occasion of the premiere of her work Ecos del pensamiento, her music has “timbral subtlety as its main weapon, (…) a beautiful, thin and fragile music”. J.M. Rodríguez Amaro, in a review of her work Nadiyama, wrote: “with a spectral line and subtle expressiveness, exquisite in the handling of a crystalline sound density”. Daniel Huschert also speaks of “subtle impressions” when referring to the JONDE’s performance of his orchestral work Llueven estrellas en el mar at the Konzerthaus in Berlin, within the Young Euro Classic Festival.

Regarding the premiere of his orchestral work Y la mañana se llenó de luz, Tomás Marco speaks of a language “masterfully structured and of great sonorous beauty, which exudes sensitivity, refinement and, above all, an undeniable value”. For his part, Arturo Reverter refers to Díaz de la Fuente as “a figure who has already established himself in a very high place in the specialty” and to her music as a space full of “ethereal evocations coming from nowhere, iridescent shades, expectant silences (that) come together in a very careful language, worked with the skill of a goldsmith”.

Deeply interested in poetry, one of the most relevant qualities of her work is the interrelation between sound and word. This is demonstrated by the large number of works in which poetry and music come together, such as in Les prétemps du monde, La face de la verité or Le nuage del rêveurs, based on poems by the Senegalese poet L. S. Senghor, or in 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 are fused with her music, such as in Ecos del pensamiento, Redes al tiempo, Bajo el silencio or Bedankt!

Díaz de la Fuente was born in Madrid, where she studied Organ and Composition at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid. In 2005 she obtained a doctorate in Philosophy from the UNED. He 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, and courses in organ performance with H. Meister, J. Savall, M. Radulescu…, giving concerts in Spain and abroad. He later extended his organ studies in Barcelona, ​​with M. Torrent. At the University of Alcalá de Henares he extended his studies in Composition, working for four years under the direction of José Luis de Delás. In Paris, he took courses in composition and musical computing at IRCAM with M.-A. Dalbavie, J. Harvey and R. Reynolds, among others.

Among his works we can highlight: Ecos del pensamiento (2nd prize SGAE 1995), En el azul (commissioned by INAEM 1995), Siluetas sobre fondo de silencio (Prize INAEM 1997), Elde (Festival Aujourd´hui Musiques 2000), El destino de Euterpe (commissioned by E. Télémaque 2002), Redes al tiempo (commissioned by CDMC, 2002), Aymará (commissioned by the Testival Internacional de Tres Cantos 2007), La noche en ti no alterna (commissioned by the Festival América-España de la OCNE, 2008), Habib (commissioned by Trío Arbós 2008), Nadiyama (27th Alicante Music Festival, 2011), Bedankt! (52nd Week of Religious Music of Cuenca, 2013), Llueven estrellas en el mar (JONDE under the direction of Pablo González, Konzerthaus Berlin, 2018), Más allá del horizonte (Ensemble opus 22, CD Sibila 57, 2019), Y la mañana se llenó de luz (Commissioned by the OCNE, 2021), Rumor de nubes (Commissioned by the CNDM 2022), Los acantilados de Jaizkibel (commissioned by the JONDE, 2022),Resonancias sobre la Folía de España (commissioned by the OCNE for the closing of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2023), etc..

Her teaching activity is developed as Professor of Composition, giving classes in Composition and Analysis of 20th and 21st century music at the Royal Conservatory of Music of Madrid at the Bachelor and Master levels. She has also been a Professor of “Musical Training and Analysis” in the Degree of “Musical Interpretation” at the Alfonso X el Sabio University – Faculty of Music and Performing Arts – from 2013 to 2021 and of “Analysis” in the Master of Orchestral Conducting at the same University from 2016 to 2021, “Analysis of Contemporary Music” in the Master of Orchestral Interpretation at the International University of Andalusia / Barenboim-Said Foundation in Seville from 2013 to 2016, Professor of Aesthetics at the Conservatory of Music of Salamanca from 2003 to 2008, Professor of “Techniques and aesthetics in the musical creation of the 20th and 21st centuries in the Master in Musical Creation and Interpretation of the Rey Juan Carlos University, Madrid and Granada, from 2009 to 2013 and Professor of Harmony, Analysis and Composition at the Joaquín Turina Professional Music Conservatory in Madrid from 1992 to 2001.

As an author of studies on Analysis and Musical Aesthetics, she has published articles such as: “María Eugenia Luc o el rumor del sonido” (ISBN: 9788419598622, 8419598623), “Antón García Abril: la música de la emoción” (ISSN 2659-8531), “José Luis de Delás o la ética creativa desde el exilio” (ISSN 1134-8615, e-ISSN 2660-4582), “Análisis e indeterminación lingüística: el caso de John Cage” (ISBN … 978-84-122419-7-6), “El sonido de Kaija Saariaho” (I.S.S.N. 0541-4040), “Apuntes analíticos sobre la pieza para piano Eguzkilore de Carme Fernández Vidal” (ISBN 978-84-96814-85-1), “Una mirada a Cripsis de Alberto Posadas” (ISBN 978-84-9982-816-9), “La música de Mallarmé, la poesía de Debussy: un viaje fascinante entre la sugerencia y el símbolo”(I.S.S.N. 0541-4040), “György Ligeti: un constructor de sueños” (Legal deposit M 30492-96), “Del espacio virtual a la ubicuidad sonora” (I.S.S.N. 0541-4040) or “Influencia de la música de Anton Webern en las vanguardias musicales europeas de los años cincuenta del siglo XX” (I.S.S.N. 1134-8615).

She has also given courses and lectures related to her research in the field of Analysis, Aesthetics and Contemporary Music at various universities and higher education centres such as 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 Conservatorio Superior de Salamanca, the Conservatorio Superior Victoria Eugenia de Granada, the Manhattan School of Music, etc.

As a composer, she has received numerous commissions from institutions such as the National Institute of Performing Arts and Music of the Ministry of Culture and Sport, the National Centre for Musical Diffusion, the National Orchestra and Choir of Spain, the Fundación Autor-AEOS, the National Youth Orchestra of Spain, the Tres Cantos Festival, the Alicante Music Festival, the Valldemossa Festival, etc.

He has received various Composition Awards, such as the Flora Prieto Award 1992, the Jacinto e Inocencio Guerrero Foundation Award 1993, the SGAE Second Prize 1995, the INAEM Composition Award 1997, the Musical Creation Awards 1995 from the Ministry of Culture, the National Music Award 2022, etc.

He has participated as a member of Composition Juries (INAEM Musical Composition Prize, Reina Sofía Composition Prize, Flora Prieto Prize, Fundación Autor Composition Contest, AEOS Composition Grants, etc.).