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Cecilia Arditto (Buenos Aires, 1966)

I studied music at the Conservatorio Julián Aguirre, Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Música Contemporánea (CEAMC) and Conservatory of Amsterdam under Wim Henderickx (cum laude); I took composition lessons in Argentina with Gabriel Valverde and Mariano Etkin; analysis with Margarita Fernandez among others.

Even though I have not met them, I consider Luigi Nono, Robert Bresson, Witold Gombrowicz and Cesar Aira my influences.

Prizes and stipendia: First Composition Prize CCRR-CEAMC 1996, "Buenos Aires No Duerme¨ Prize 1998, Mention Concurso Radio Clásica, Concurso de Composición CEAMC-Arditti String Quartet, Antorchas Scholarship for two consecutive years, Fondo Nacional de las Artes Prize, etc. My music was selected for the "3rd Forum International de Jeunes Compositeurs de l'Ensemble l'Aleph, France, the "Boswil International Composition Seminar", Switzerland and the "Music at the Anthology Festival" in New York for two editions. I was honored with a residential grant at the Camargo residence for artists in France to work in my chamber opera "The daughter of the sorceress..." .

My music has been performed in Latin-American, USA and Europe.

I have constantly been working in collaboration with artists of other disciplines like Jorge Lumbreras (video), Ida Lohman (magic lanterns), Ines Birkhan (dance), Ragna Aurich (theatre) and Luciana Arditto (visual arts) with whom we conceived an opera “The daughter of the sorceress...” . This opera started as a long “work in progress project” and has become a “life time project”. Working together with other artists is practically the main source to develop my musical ideas. Robert Bresson quoted Stendhal, “The other arts taught me the art of writing.”

I have been researching deeply about solo instrument possibilities in my project “Música invisible” (another “life time project”… so far).

For me, the composer-performer collaboration has constantly been a need to understand the sound experience from multiple perspectives. I worked in collaboration with Amy Horvey, Isak Goldschneider, Arnold Marinissen, John Addison and many others.

I consider the organization of new music events as an important counterpart of my composition activity. In Argentina I was co-founder of L.V., a young composers´ association (1996-2001) dedicated to promote New Latin-American Music. In Holland I was co-founder of the Sound Forum Amsterdam, monthly international composers’ forum (2006-08). I was guest programmer of Stichting Perpetuumm (2006-2007) for Latijns-amerikaanse Componisten aan 't Ij. At present I am working on my own foundation “Stichting plan B” together with the dancer Pablo Fontdevila.