Author Biography
Ricardo Llorca is one of the most promising talents to emerge from the new generation of contemporary Spanish-American composers. Llorca was born in 1962 in Alicante, a city located in the southeastern coastal region of Spain that has been the birthplace of many great musicians -Oscar Espla, Ruperto Chapi, Jose Iturbi, Lopez Chavarri, Martin y Soler, Joaquin Rodrigo, Tarrega, etc. He later moved to Madrid, where he studied at that city's Royal Conservatory under Roman Alis and attended the most theoretically advanced courses at the Festival de Granada with Luigi Nono, Carmelo Bernaola, and Luis de Pablo. After graduating in 1988, Llorca traveled to New York in order to continue his studies at the Juilliard School, where he has worked with composers David Diamond and John Corigliano. Upon completing his studies, Llorca assumed a faculty position at Juilliard, and continues to teach there today. Llorca combines his teaching responsibilities at Juilliard with his work as a composer, which has garnered him the Richard Rogers Scholarship (1992), the Virgen de la Almudena Award (1999), and the John Simon Guggenheim Award (2001). Ricardo Llorca is the composer-in-residence for The New York Opera Society and the New York-based dance company Sensedance. Llorca is currently teaching at The Juillliard School and at The Queen Sofia Spanish Institute in New York City. Llorca is a grant recipient of The Argosy Foundation and Met-Life/Meet the Composer 2008.
