Argentinian-American composer Ezequiel Viñao has been described by the members of the Juilliard String Quartet as a “particularly personal and intimate musical voice,” one that “combines an encyclopedic musical knowledge with an eclectic compositional philosophy.” It is perhaps this sense of diversity in the music that has prompted a wide range of organizations and performers across the world to collaborate with Mr. Viñao: the list includes Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York; the Kennedy Center and the Library of Congress in Washington; the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen Music Festivals; the Almeida Theatre in London; The Tramway in Glasgow; the Musikverein in Vienna; the Presences and Bourges Festivals in France; the Concertgebouw and the Philips Muziekcentrum in Holland; the Helsinki Biennale; the Shobi Institute in Tokyo; musicians as varied as Dennis Russell Davies, Paul Hillier, Kristjan Jarvi, Joseph Kalichstein and Cristina Pato; and ensembles such as the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the American Composers Orchestra, the Buenos Aires Philharmonic, Chanticleer, the National Chamber Choir of Ireland, and the Juilliard, St. Lawrence and Brentano String Quartets. Mr. Viñao’s music was featured at the gala for the reopening of the legendary Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires during the bicentennial celebrations of Argentinean independence. He is also in “A Great Day in New York”, a portrait inspired by the classic 1959 photograph of jazz legends in Harlem. The picture, which appeared full page in the New York Times, was a Lincoln Center CMS initiative to “celebrate composers who have drawn inspiration from living in the city and have played a role in its musical life”.
A five-time ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music) First Prize winner, Viñao has been singled out for distinction with a Kennedy Center ‘Friedheim’ Award; a First Prize from UNESCO’s Latin-American Rostrum of Composers; the Argentinean Academy of Fine Arts; the International Music Council in Paris, and the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Mr. Viñao has also been invited to lecture on a variety of subjects ranging from Latin-American culture to Old English poetry, at the Library of Congress in Washington, the University of Cambridge Center for Music & Science in the UK; the Jorge Luis Borges Cultural Center in Buenos Aires, and as a Visiting Scholar at the NYU Abu Dhabi Arts Center among many others. He was recently part of a working group organized by NYU’s Global Institute for Advanced Study, traveling to Ghana to meeting with prominent local artists and scholars and make field recordings of traditional Akan music. In 2022, Mr. Viñao moderated an assembly at the “Tangier Dialogue”, a conclave which included senior representatives of governments, heads of international organizations, public intellectuals, entrepreneurs and journalists, organized by Project Aladdin in partnership with the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations.
Mr. Viñao, who is in the faculty of NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, is currently developing ‘La Crónica Andalusí’, a music narration about the rise and fall of the Caliphate of Córdoba in medieval Spain.
