Donemus Webwinkel — Orozco, Keyla

Cuban-Dutch composer Keyla Orozco established herself in The Netherlands as an independent artist since 1996. She is currently living in the US (Washington DC), and sharing her professional career between the two countries mainly.

Awards and Fellowships
Orozco's compositional work has been awarded among others with the Guggenheim and the Cintas Fellowships in USA, First and Second Prizes at International Composition Contest René Amengüal in Chile, and the National Cuban prize for Symphonic Composition UNEAC. She was granted a residency fellowship at MacDowell Colony (USA) as well as a Two-Year Grant for Composition by the Dutch Peeforming Arts Funds (Fonds Podiumkunsten).
She has received numerous commissions to write for outstanding international ensembles and soloists such as Nederlands Blazers Ensemble, Nederlands Kamerkoor, Nederlands Fluitorkest, Asko Ensemble, Nieuw Ensemble, Combustion Chamber, De Ereprijs, Ricciotti Ensemble, David Kweksilber Big Band, Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras, ZOFO Duet and many others. Her works are regularly performed in festivals and events around the world, at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Carré Theater, Muziekgebouw aan het Ij, Bimhuis, Parasdiso Theater, among others.

Teaching
She started teaching in 1993 as a professor of Theory at the Instituto Superior de Artes in Havana. Between 1996-2012 she worked in the Netherlands both at institutions and privately as a Piano, Composition and Music Theory teacher. Besides becoming assistant professor of Composition in the class of Theo Loevendie at the Conservatory of Amsterdam, she taught Piano at the British School in The Netherlands. She is currently a music faculty at Washington International School.

Other professional activities
After organizing diverse multi-disciplinary events in Cuba and The Netherlands, Keyla Orozco founded PerpetuumM Foundation in 2004, to promote Latin-American Arts and Culture in The Netherlands. Festival ‘Q-ba Música’ (2004) and Series ‘Latijns-Amerikaanse componisten aan het ij’ (2006-07) were projects directed and co-produced by Keyla Orozco within this enterprise, in which she worked till 2008.
Her curiosity for exploring Latin-American folk rhythms and the idea of integrating them into her compositional work, leaded her in 2006 to a field-research on the traditional Venezuelan/Colombian Music known as “Música Llanera’. This project was subsidized by the Dutch Performing Arts Funds. As a result, her later compositions have been strongly influenced by this music, being the case of Estudio del Pajarillo, Met de schoenen and Piezas de bolsillo.

Studies
Keyla Orozco received professional music education since the age of 8, starting with Piano at Esteban Salas Conservatory in Santiago de Cuba. In 1988 she obtained her diploma in piano pedagogy and performance at Escuela Nacional de Artes (ENA) in Havana, under the guidance of Yleana Bautista. Later, she studied composition at Instituto Superior de Artes (ISA) in Havana with Harold Gramatges, obtaining her Bachelor degree in 1993. Between 1995-98 she followed Advanced Composition studies in The Netherlands with Theo Loevendie, at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and Conservatory of Amsterdam.

Keyla Orozco Aléman werd op 22 september 1969 in Santiago de Cuba geboren.

Opleiding
Zij studeerde in Havana piano aan de Escuela Nacional de Arte en compositie bij Harold Gramatges aan het Instituto Superior de Arte. Van 1995 tot 1998 studeerde zij in Nederland compositie bij Theo Loevendie aan het Koninklijk Conservatorium te Den Haag en in Amsterdam. In 2002 werd zij zijn assistent op het Sweelinck Conservatorium.

Composities
Haar werk blijkt in het Nederlandse muziekklimaat een verrassende aanwinst door de verfrissende mix van fusionritmes, folkloristische tinten en klassieke elementen. In Nederland ontving zij opdrachten voor diverse composities: Perpetuumm (1996) van het Nieuw Ensemble; Extremes (1997) voor Combustion Chamber van de VPRO-Televisie; Arpa (1998) voor Ernestine Stoop van het Nederlands Harp Concours (2000), Self-Portrait (1999) van het ensemble De Ereprijs, A-Quatro (2000) van het Mallesymen Quartet, Décimas a Theo (2000) van het Asko Ensemble en Para Variar (2001) voor het Mondriaan Quartet van het Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst; El Cuadrado (1999) voor 4 trompetten en een werk voor symfonieorkest (2002) van de Stichting Huismuziek; Frutas del Caney (2000) van het Nederlands Kamerkoor, Flutemos/Flauteamus (2000) van het Nederlands Fluitorkest en een werk voor blokfluit en live electronics voor Susanna Borsh (2002) van het Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst; XXI@slag-werkers.nl.etc.com (2000) van het Big Bang Festival.

Prijzen
In 1989 kreeg ze een tweede en derde prijs van het National Composition Contest for Didactic Music in Havana in de categorie Beginners Pianostukken. In 1990 ontving Orozco de National Prize for Symphonic Composition - contest georganiseerd door de Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC). In de International Composition Contest René Amengual in Santiago de Chile (1994) ontving ze de eerste prijs in de categorie Muziek voor kinderen met Zéjeles de la Marinera en de tweede prijs in de categorie Kamermuziek met Eco y Espejo. In 2000 kreeg Orozco de Guggenheim Latin American and Caribbean Fellowship Award van de John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in New York en in 2003 de Cintas Fellowship for creative arts van het Institute of International Education in New York.

2005