Performance Year: 2024
Award-winning composer Jimmy López Bellido (b. 1978) is considered “one of the most interesting young composers anywhere today” (Chicago Sun-Times) and an “expert in orchestration” (New York Times) with a distinct voice that is “adventurous and winning” (Denver Post). His works have been performed by leading orchestras around the world, including the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and the National Symphony Orchestras of Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, and Spain. His music has been heard in prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Kennedy Center, Vienna’s Musikverein, Concertgebouw, Konzerthaus Berlin, and during the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games and Lima 2019 Pan American Games. His music has also been featured in numerous festivals, including Tanglewood, Aspen, Grant Park, Darmstadt, Donaueschingen, and the Nordic Music Days.
As part of the Renée Fleming initiative, the Lyric Opera of Chicago commissioned him a full-length opera based on the bestselling novel Bel Canto which premiered on December 7, 2015 to wide critical acclaim. Bel Canto became the bestselling opera of Lyric’s 2015-2016 season, and it went on to earn a nomination to the 2016 International Opera Awards. In 2017 it was broadcast throughout the U.S. on PBS’ Great Performances. His work Fiesta! has been performed over a hundred times worldwide, ranging from New Zealand to Siberia. Dreamers, an oratorio which he wrote in collaboration with Pulitzer Prize winner Nilo Cruz, received its world premiere by soprano Ana María Martínez, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, and the Philharmonia Orchestra of London in Berkeley, California in March of 2019. Mr. López completed a three-year tenure as the Houston Symphony’s Composer-in-Residence in the spring of 2020.
He has been awarded numerous prizes, including a 2017 Hewlett50 Arts Commissions from the Hewlett Foundation, TUMI USA Award 2016, Musician of the Year 2015 by Opera Peru and “El Comercio,” Honorable Mention at the 2015 Barlow Prize Competition, Special Mention at the 2015 Casa de las Américas Composition Prize, 2014 Antara Prize in recognition for his outstanding career, 2013 Prince Prize from the Prince Charitable Trusts, and First Prize at the 2012 and 2011 Nicola de Lorenzo Music Composition Contest.
He studied with Enrique Iturriaga from 1998-2000 at the National Conservatory of Music in Lima, and with Veli-Matti Puumala and Eero Hämeenniemi from 2000-2007 at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, from where he obtained his Master of Music Degree. He completed his PhD in Music at the University of California-Berkeley in May of 2012 with Edmund Campion. He is published by Filarmonika and Birdsong.
