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Juan Pablo Contreras

Still in the student phase of his career as of 2020, composer Juan Pablo Contreras has already gained wide attention in Mexico, the U.S., and beyond. Contreras' music fuses classical elements with Mexican vernacular styles. Contreras was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1987. His mother was a concert pianist, and he grew up in a classical music environment. As a teen, he took up the bass and began playing with a metal band called Life Keeper, but that, ironically, took him back to classical music: his bandmates expressed a desire to create music with an orchestral element. Contreras studied orchestration and became more and more interested in a career as a composer. He moved to Los Angeles County, California, at 18 to attend the California Institute of the Arts. His teacher there was operatic composer Daniel Catán, a major influence. Contreras earned a bachelor's degree from CalArts and then, at Catán's suggestion, went east for further study, attending the Manhattan School of Music and winning the coveted BMI William Schuman Prize. Contreras returned to California for his doctorate, attending and serving as of 2020 as a teaching assistant at the University of Southern California. By that time, Contreras was already a veteran of the concert scene. "My mission as an orchestral composer is to write classical music that is resoundingly Mexican," he told the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and audiences have found that an attractive combination. His music has been performed in Mexico by the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico and the Mexico City and UNAM Philharmonics; in the U.S. by the Victoria Bach Festival Orchestra, the Waco Symphony, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; and beyond, by the Salta and Córdoba Symphonies in Argentina and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. Contreras' music has been recorded on the Universal Music Mexico, Albany Records, and Epsa Music labels, among others. He has also begun to release his music on albums of his own, issuing Mariachitlán with the Jalisco Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2020, he planned to tour music from the album with eight different Mexican orchestras.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Discography

22 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller

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