José del Avellanal Carreño
| José del Avellanal Carreño | |
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| Biography | José del Avellanal Carreño (*1998) is a composer, vocalist and performer from Madrid based in Switzerland. He studied Composition at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) with Emily Howard and Steven Daverson, graduating with honours, and is currently a student of Simon Steen-Andersen, Franziska Baumann and Daniel Gloger at the Hochschule der Künste Bern. Showcasing a growing fascination with multimedia creation and theatricality, his work revolves around musical narrative, imperfect technologies, musical and physical gestures and the exploration of the concept of «the human» in music. Del Avellanal’s music has been performed by Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Arxis Ensemble, Ensemble Shockwave, Philipp Lamprecht (Meitar Ensemble), Oliver Janes (Birmingham Contemporary Music Group), Ausiàs Garrigós Morant (Riot Ensemble), Weston Olencki and the RNCM Brand New Orchestra, amongst others. He has received the WE:NOW International Festival for Youth Art Music Award (2022) and the RNCM Creative Innovator Award (2021). As a singer, his artistic practice is mainly focused in contemporary vocal performance. He has participated in the world premieres of works by Éliane Radigue, Jiwon Seo, Ali Latif Shushtari, BUREAU BUREAU, Ezequiel Capellano and himself. ABOUT José del Avellanal Carreño: «Manchester, May 2021 (Calling Dreams)» This work was created in May of 2021 in collaboration with baritone Oscar Faulkner, conceived as a farewell project to our time as undergraduate students at the Royal Northern College of Music. The piece makes use of bits of recorded conversations between Oscar and myself, in which we shared memories of our time in Manchester before the COVID-19 pandemic took place and reflected on our experiences and growth having reached the end of our four years of study. Through the use of these snippets of conversation, the piece aims to capture and preserve a little fraction of who we were at that time; a fragment our reality and circumstances before we parted ways from Manchester and embarked on the next chapter of our lives. The work also includes a setting of Georgia Douglas Johnson’s short poem «Calling Dreams», a triumphant statement of hope and ambition. This poem is used to express our former view of the world as young music students early in our studies – idealistic, bold, and somewhat naïve –, as well as our later attitude of more mature and grounded excitement for what the future may hold. The entire soundscape of the piece, with the exception of the background sounds from my recorded conversations with Oscar, was created through a series of guitar and vibraphone samples from guitarist Will Scattergood and percussionist Amy Gray - recorded in person in March of 2020, just a few days before the COVID-19 pandemic forced the RNCM to shut down. |
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