ARUÁN ORTIZ

Pianist, violist, and composer Aruán Ortiz —born in Santiago de Cuba and resident of New York— has been an active figure in the progressive jazz and avant-garde scene in the U.S. for more than fifteen years. He is a recipient of a 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition.

Since his arrival in the United States, Aruán has played, toured, and recorded with jazz luminaries such as Wadada Leo Smith, Don Byron, Greg Osby, Wallace Roney, Nicole Mitchell, Cameron Brown, Michael Formanek, William Parker, Adam Rudolph, Andrew Cyrille, Henry Grimes, Marshall Allen, Hamiet Bluiett, Oliver Lake, Rufus Reid, Graham Haynes, Terri Lyne Carrington, and Nasheet Waits. He has also collaborated with choreographers Jose Mateo, Danis Mora, and Milena Zullo; filmmakers Ben Chace, Mariona Lloreta, and Monica Rovira; poets Abiodun Oyewole from The Last Poets; writer/poet/filmmaker Mtume Gant; DJ Logic and Val Jeanty Inc.; and renowned German writers Angelika Hentschel and Anna Breitenbach.

Aruán’s “pianism” has been lauded as “a solid and unique new sound in today’s jazz world” and his albums have been featured in major publications worldwide, including JazznMore Swizerland, The Guardian, Expresso, The New York Times, DownBeat, JazzTimes, Jazziz, The Boston Globe, Rolling Stone Magazine, Billboard, San Diego Union Tribune, All About Jazz, Jazzpodium, Musica Jazz, Il Muro Magazine, Il Corriere della Sera, Jazz Halo, The Ottawa Citizen, and The Irish Times.

Aruán holds an MFA in Music Composition from Vermont College of Fine Arts and has received numerous accolades, including South Arts Jazz Road Creative Residency Grant (2021), Jazz Coalition Commission Grant (2020), Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant (2019); the Composer Fellowship Award at Vermont College of Fine Arts (2016); the Doris Duke Impact Awards (2014); the Jerome Foundation Travel & Study Grant (2013); Latin Jazz Corner’s Arranger of the Year (2011) for his contribution on the album El Cumbanchero by flutist Mark Weinstein (Jazzheads, 2011); Jas Hennessy Piano Solo Competition, Montreux, Switzerland (2001); and Best Jazz Performance, Festival de Jazz in Vic, Catalonia (2000).

JOAN ARNAU PÀMIES

Joan Arnau Pàmies is a composer, a multi-instrumentalist, and a performing artist. His music has been described as “beautiful in the Aristotelian sense of proportion and harmony” (Revista Musical Catalana) and “chaotic and elemental yet discernibly balanced” (The New York Times).

Pàmies’s career spans fifteen years of highly diverse work, which encompasses chamber and ensemble music, unusual forms of music notation, electroacoustic pieces, live electronics, and free improvisation on multiple instruments. An artist who unhesitatingly walks uncharted aesthetic paths, Pàmies has never been comfortable working within the boundaries of specific musical genres and traditions. For him, music is a liberating space where elements of classical and electronic music, free jazz, modernism, noise rock, and experimental music coexist and can be combined to generate unique results.

Known for their extreme technical demands and complexity, Pàmies’s pieces have been performed by prominent ensembles and soloists, including BCN 216, Chartreuse, Diamanda La Berge Dramm, Ensemble Dal Niente, Ensemble Recherche, Fonema Consort, the JACK and Arditti quartets, Jeff Gavett, Jeff Siegfried, Jessica Aszodi, Joan Martí Frasquier, Kathryn Schulmeister, Kevin Toksöz Fairbairn, Laura Cocks, Liam Hockley, Loadbang, Marc Horne, Miranda Cuckson, Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, NO_Input Ensemble, TAK Ensemble, Tessa Lark, Tony Rymer, Uusinta, Vertixe Sonora, and William Lang, at venues and festivals such as Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (United Kingdom), MATA, Resonant Bodies Festival, Spectrum, DiMenna Center, The Stone (New York), Ear Taxi, Constellation (Chicago), Center for New Music (San Francisco), Versipel New Music (New Orleans), Tsai Performance Center (Boston), Unruly Music Festival (Milwaukee), Foro Internacional de Música Nueva Manuel Enríquez(Mexico City), Ostrava New Music Days (Czech Republic), Cité Universitaire(Paris), Darmstädter Ferienkurse (Germany), Kloster Lehnin (Berlin), Intersonanzen Brandenburgisches Fest der Neuen Musik (Potsdam), National Museum Reina Sofía (Madrid), 36th Encontre Internacional de Compositors, ME_MMIX (Palma de Mallorca), Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea (Santiago de Compostela), Gran Teatre del Liceu, L’Auditori, Mixtur, and Festival Grec (Barcelona).

His music has been published by 7K! (Berlin), Sideband Records (Chicago), La Mà de Guido (Barcelona), Carrier Records (New York), and his own label Protomaterial Records. His pieces have been broadcast on WQXR New York Public Radio, Radio Nacional de España, and Catalunya Música. Pàmies holds a doctorate in composition and music technology from Northwestern University (Evanston, Illinois).