Mauricio Sotelo

He also met the poet José Ángel Valente (Orense 1929 – Geneva 2000) – an unavoidable figure to comprehend Sotelo's catalogue between 1994 and 2000—at the end of the eighties.

As with Valente, the composer finds a closely similar thought in the abstract paintings by the Irish-born American painter Sean Scully (Dublin, 1945).

Mauricio Sotelo (born 2 October 1961 in Madrid) is a Spanish composer and conductor.

Sotelo began his musical studies as a self-taught player of the guitar, and later at the Real Conservatorio de Música de Madrid.

In 1979 he moved to Vienna to study at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.

Four years later, after finishing his course with Dieter Kaufmann, among others, he was admitted in the Chair of Composition commanded by Francis Burt – Sotelo dedicated to him the piece ''De Vinculis: Ge-Burt.

During his time in Wien (1979–1992) Sotelo works, created (…et l'avare silence (1988), among others) and participates, together with Beat Furrer, in the creation of the Societé de l'Art acoustique, later known as Klangforum Wien.

Mauricio Sotelo has been awarded numerous prizes including the Composition Prize by the Joven Orquesta Nacional de España (1986), by the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (1989) and by the WDR Forum Junger Komponisten (1992), the Ernst von Siemens Composer's Prize (1997), the Queen Sofia Prize of Composition (2000) and the Spanish National Music Prize (2001).

This group has to be considered a sort of "fetish" ensemble to Sotelo for two reasons: first, the personal relationship with Furrer and the musicians; second, the close and continuous work with them to create many pieces, from the Trio Basso – a R.H.R. (1988–89) to Klangmuro... I (2009) for flute, double bass and ensemble.

In Vienna he also studied electroacoustic music with Dieter Kaufmann and conducting with Karl Österreicher.

Also at this time, Sotelo came into contact with Luigi Nono, a composer who exercised a lively influence in his musical thought, today even stronger than in those years.

Sotelo devotes several pieces like Nel suono indicibile – a Luigi Nono (1989–1990), Due voci… come un soffio dall'estrema lontananza (1990–1991) where he uses texts from Massimo Cacciari – a philosopher deeply close to Nono – ''Frammenti de l'infinito.

Lorca-Nono.

Also at the end of his years in Vienna, but materialized after his return to Spain in 1992, the composer came into contact with the poet José Ángel Valente, another of the key figures in Sotelo's creation.

Currently, as imbued by Valente's poetry, Sotelo writes pieces like ''Memoriae.

Already in Spain, after the successful première of Tenebræ Responsoria in the XXXII Semana de Música Religiosa de Cuenca (1993) with the cantaor Enrique Morente, Sotelo began an important teaching activity.

As invited professor, he participated in the Aula de Música at the University of Alcalá de Henares (1993–1995), in the composition seminar at Columbia University in New York (1996), in the Summer Courses of Composition at the International Festival Órgano de León – widely known as Cursos in Villafranca del Bierzo – and, more recently, in the Seminar of Composition Casa da Musica in Oporto (2002), the Chair Manuel de Falla in Cádiz (2007) and the Course of Composition at the Conservatorio Superior de Música in Córdoba (2009).

Escritura interna sobre un espacio poético de José Ángel Valente (1994) – a key work in his career – Nadie (1995–97), Epitafio (1997), In pace (1997), Si después de morir... In memoriam José Ángel Valente (2000), El rayo de tiniebla (2008), Arde el alba (2008–2009) and Muros de dolor ... V: José Ángel Valente – Memoria sonora'' (2009).

Sotelo meets him in 1997 in Seville, in the II International Festival of Arts Sibila.

Sotelo is largely interested in '...

the process of its creation, It is certainly the clarity of the composition through which the light is liberated from material bonds and which can come to light as oscillations of air, and respectively ultimately as music'

Diálogo del amargo (1998), where the poetic figure of Federico García Lorca appears – also used by Nono in Epitaffi per Federico Garcia Lorca I–III (1951–1953) and the ballet Der rote Mantel (1955) – or Cripta.

The figure of Federico García Lorca also appears in Sotelo's music in 1998, for the first time, when he finishes the pieces ''Canta la luz herida por el hielo.

Homenaje a Federico García Lorca, Frammenti de l'infinito.

Lorca-Nono, Diálogo del amargo and Interludien zu Lorcas 'Canciones Populares' ''.

From that year, Lorca's lyrics arise in Sotelo's catalogue till today because of two reasons: on one side, a shared attraction for Flamenco – also a very inspiring music for the poet – and, on the other, the enchantment that Lorca's poems have caused in Luigi Nono's music already in the fifties.

As the composer thinks, one of the most interesting series made by the painter is the Wall of light cycle, officially launched in 1998, with Wall of light Pink, yet whose leading beginning can be located fourteen years earlier with Wall of light 4.84 (1984).

The cycle runs until today so this is a main Project in Scully's career.

Sotelo has created his own cycle of compositions devoted, at least in his conceptual aim, to Scully's work.

A Francis Burt'' (2001) for violin – and, decisively for him, in Roman Haubenstock-Ramati's seminars, to conclude this academic period in 1987, being awarded the Prize of Honour for graduate studies.

From the turn to the 21st century, Sotelo consolidated his career in contemporary music, being institutionally recognized and finishing many main pieces like the cycle Wall of Light (2003–2007) – devoted to the figure of Sean Scully – ''Sonetos del amor oscuro.

Cripta sonora para Luigi Nono (2003–2005) and Muerte sin fin'' (2010), among others.

Música para Luigi Nono'' (2009).

This biographic and musical affinity with the Italian artist producest several branches in Sotelo's composition: architecture of memory, oral tradition, act of performing, sound, Andalousian cante jondo.

The attraction and analysis of all these concepts led Sotelo to a deep connection with Flamenco in all its forms: cante, guitar, percussion and baile.

He was composer in residence at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2011–2012) – where he had met the composer Luigi Nono at the end of the eighties.

He lives in Berlin and works today as a Professor of Composition at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya in Barcelona.

The leading influence on Sotelo's work is, with any doubt, the presence in his musical thought of the Venetian composer Luigi Nono.

This seduction for the lorquian world is again reinforced in Sotelo's creative life since 2012, when he's invited to create a new opera: El público – commissioned by Gerard Mortier for the Teatro Real – in a prologue and five scenes, with a libretto by Andrés Ibáñez, after the text by Lorca published around 1930, performed for the first time in Puerto Rico in 1979 and seven years later in Spain.

This opera was to have been premiered in the winter of 2015 at the Teatro Real in Madrid.