SHORT BIOGRAPHY

An “undeniably exciting composer” (Opera News), with “a brilliant command of orchestral timbres and textures” (Dallas Morning News) and “a virtuoso mastery of the modern orchestra” (The New Yorker), López’s works have been performed by leading orchestras around the world, including all Big Five American orchestras, and in prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall (BBC Proms), Concertgebouw, Sydney Opera House, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Kennedy Center, Vienna’s Musikverein, Konzerthaus Berlin, the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games, the Lima 2019 Pan American Games, and the Aspen, Tanglewood, and Grant Park music festivals.

His violin concerto Aurora, which was recorded by Leticia Moreno, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, and the Houston Symphony, was nominated to a 2022 Latin Grammy in the “Best Classical Contemporary Composition” category. Fiesta!, one of his most famous works, has received over a hundred fifty performances worldwide. Dreamers, an oratorio which he wrote in collaboration with Pulitzer Prize-winning Playwright Nilo Cruz, was premiered by Ana María Martínez, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and the Philharmonia Orchestra in 2019. Bel Canto, a full-length opera commissioned by Lyric Opera of Chicago as part of the Renée Fleming initiative and based on Ann Patchett’s bestselling novel, premiered in December 2015 to wide critical acclaim and was broadcast U.S. nationwide on PBS’ Great Performances.

Mr. López was Composer-in-Residence at the Houston Symphony from 2017-2020, and in the 2024/25 season, López is Mead Composer-Curator with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. His “Symphony No. 5: Fantastica”, written for and dedicated to conductor Christian Reif, will be premiered by an international co-commissioning consortium that includes the Symphony Orchestras of Cincinnati and Detroit (U.S.), Gävle (Sweden), and Konstanz (Germany). Other notable highlights this seaon include performances by the orchestras of Toronto, Melbourne, Tampere, Naples, Oregon, and Sarasota.

A native of Lima, he studied at the city’s National Conservatory of Music prior to graduating from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki with a Master of Music degree. López completed his Ph.D. in Music at the University of California-Berkeley. He is published by Filarmonika and Birdsong.

Jimmy López © 2024