Spanish Young Music Talents & Ukraine: Pilar Miralles in Washington, DC

Spanish composer Pilar Miralles visits the Spanish Cultural Center to present her newest work as part of the “Spanish Young Music Talents” program in a special collaboration with Ukraine.

Spanish Young Music Talents (SYMT) is the new program of the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain in Washington, D.C. SYMT has been envisioned to enhance and support Spanish young musicians’ careers, in collaboration with U.S. music schools and universities at a higher level (bachelor and graduate students orchestras), offering them an experience abroad.

SYMT aims to offer young musicians not only a concert or recital in the U.S., but a complete experience with complementary activities such as masterclasses, talks, conferences, etc. to broaden their opportunities and contacts. All visiting musicians are winners of the Juventudes Musicales de España national award and under 30 years old.

As part of the collaboration with the Embassy of Ukraine in the USA and the House of Ukraine, this concert will feature Ukrainian and Spanish traditional music, as well as some music inspired by both countries and written by both Ukrainian and Spanish composers.

Program

1. M. Skoryk: Mélodie. N. Kapustin: Étude Op.40 n.8. Traditional (arr. Gerdan) – Hutsul / Inspirations Bukovynian Polka
2. E. Granados: Zapateado. P. Sarasate: Romanza andaluza. M. de Falla: Danza ritual del fuego
3. M. Skoryk: Spanish Dance. Bezborodko: Paraphrase sur les thèmes de “Carmen”
4. P. Miralles: music with backs turned, for violin, double-bass and piano (world premiere)

Musicians

• Gerdan Music
• Solomia Gorokhivska, violin; Andrei Pidkivka, flutes; Greg Watkins, bass
• Daniel del Pino, piano
• Pilar Miralles, composer / invited musician as part of SYMT.

Pilar Miralles

Pilar Miralles (Almería, Spain, 1997) is a composer and sound artist based in Helsinki, Finland. She completed her Master’s Degree in Electroacoustic Composition at Centro Superior Katarina Gurska of Madrid (2020) and her Master of Music in Composition at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki (2022).

Miralles is currently a doctoral candidate at DocMus Doctoral School (Arts Study Programme), at the same institution. In her artistic research project, she investigates and questions, through the compositional process, the normalization of a culture of the overload, whose main consequence is the lack of space for a reflexive construction of the self.

Her works have been part of festivals such as Time of Music in Viitasaari (Finland, 2023), ManiFeste at the IRCAM in Paris (France, 2022), or the VANG new music series of CentroCentro in Madrid (Spain, 2023). Her most recent recognition was the First Prize of the Young Composers Award organized by the Spanish Society of Authors and Publishers (SGAE) in Madrid (Spain, 2023), thanks to which she is the current composer in residence of Juventudes Musicales de España (Spanish Musical Youths). She also collaborates as a co-teacher of the SuperCollider programming workshop organized by the Music Technology department of the Sibelius Academy since 2023. Lastly, she has been invited by the Ulysses Network to join the “Ulysses Journeys for Young Composers” in 2023 and 2024.