Winner of a 2020 John Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, Mexican born-American composer José-Luis Hurtado’s music has been performed across continents by ensembles and soloists such as the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, JACK Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble ICE,Talea Ensemble, Earplay Ensemble, Juilliard Ensemble, New York Miniaturist Ensemble, Seattle Chamber Players, Iowa CNM Ensemble, Callithumpian Consort,The Ikarus Chamber Players, SEM Ensemble, Sigma Project Sax Quartet,The North/South Consonance Chamber Orchestra, Interensemble, Concorde Ensemble, Quinteto Latino, Ensamble 3, Ensamble Ónix,Versus 8 Percussion Quartet, Orquesta Uninorte, Orquesta Sinfónica de Guanajuato, Orquesta Sinfónica de San Luis Potosí, Camerata de las Amérícas, CEPROMUSIC Ensemble, Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir, Quatuor Molinari, Pierrot Lunaire Ensemble Wien, Stephen Drury, Émile Girard-Charest, Lora Kmieliauskaite,Tony Arnold, Garth Knox, Claire Chase, Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne and the Arditti String Quartet among others.
He has been the recipient of the Kompositionspreis der Stadt Wolkersdorf (Austria), the Harvard University Green Prize for Excellence in Composition (USA), the Rodolfo Halffter Ibero-American Composition Prize,The Adelbert W. Sprague Prize (USA),The George Arthur Knight Prize (USA), the Micro-Jornadas de Composición y Música Contemporánea Prize (Argentina), the Julián Carrillo Composition Prize (Mexico), El Premio Estatal de Composición del Festival Internacional de Música Contemporánea de Michoacán (Mexico), the José Tocavén Lavín Medal in recognition of his artistic trajectory, 2nd prize in the Troisieme Concours International de composition du Quatuor Molinari (Canada), 2nd prize in the Ariel Piano Composition Competition,Third Prize Winner of the National SCI/ASCAP Composition Competition, and finalist of The Earplay Composition Competition,The Look & Listen Festival Composition Competition and The Jeunesses International Composition Competition (Romania). Grants and Fellowships include those from the National Endowment for the Arts of Mexico, the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (USA), Ibermúsicas, the American Music Center, and the Civitella Ranieri Foundation (Italy). He has just been named member of the prestigious Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte grant in recognition of a distinguished artistic trajectory.The SNCA is a government supported program that converges the most renown artists of Mexico, including writers, visual artists, dancers, film makers, and composers.
He is currently working on commissions for bassonist Ben Roidl-Ward, bass clarinetist Gleb Kanasevich, saxophonist Philipp Stäudlin, CRAS Danish Guitar Ensemble, flutist Camilla Hoitenga, German percussionist Magdalena Meitzner, cellist Leo Eguchi, Spanish Vertixe Sonora Ensemble, and an interdisciplinary concertante piece for a child pianist, string orchestra, percussion, and fixed media supported by the John Guggenheim Foundation. Premieres and performances of his pieces during 2021, 2022, and 2023 are taking place in Lithuania, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, France, Mexico,Argentina, and the US.
His second CD portrait, which features NY based Talea Ensemble performing six of his most recent compositions for large ensemble of 16 members, will be released at the end of March of 2021 under the prestigious Kairos recording label. Many of his works can be heard on ATMA Clasique (Canada), New Focus Recordings (USA), Con Brio Records (USA) and Urtext (Mexico). His music is published and distributed by Babel Scores, a french publisher specialist in new music.
In addition to his compositional career, he is highly active as a pianist and music advocate. He is the pianist of Low Frequency Trio (Contemporary Bass clarinet, double bass, and piano ensemble), founding member of áltaVoz (Latin- American composers collaborative in the U.S), founder and curator of La Mansion de la Cantante Muda (an interdisciplinary festival of contemporary music, film, and storytelling at the Leonora Carrington Museum in Mexico), and former director of The Harvard Group for New Music.
Hurtado holds degrees in piano performance and composition from Conservatorio de las Rosas (Morelia, Mexico), a Master of Music in Composition from Universidad Veracruzana (Xalapa, Mexico) and a Ph.D. from Harvard University where he studied under Mario Davidovsky, Chaya Czernowin, Magnus Lindberg, Brian Ferneyhough and Helmut Lachenmann.
Hurtado is currently Associate Professor of Theory and Composition at the University of New Mexico where he also directs the New Music New Mexico Contemporary Ensemble and the Music from the Americas Concert Series.
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