Geoffrey Álvarez
Geoffrey Alvarez is a Nicaraguan/British composer, conductor and writer.
As a student at the Royal Academy of Music, he received all of the awards in composition, such as the Eric Coates Prize for light music, culminating in an award for a work for flute, viola and harp. Obsessions (1990), for the same instruments, was similarly recognized by the Royal Over-Seas League. In 1984, he earned his D. Phil. from the University of York, and was subsequently invited by Luciano Berio for a consultation in Florence. Among his many international prizes are the 2006 Tansman Composersʼ Competition, which was adjudicated by Krzysztof Penderecki and Heinz Holliger.
His Spanish-language works include his Colombian nine-hour opera dream cycle, La profecía última del rey, and his Symphony IX: Canto Cósmico with text by Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal. In 2020, a recording of his German hundred-minute song cycle, “Hölderlinfester” received the ‘What a performance’ award by the online Art Music Lounge. Recently, he has just finished A Sunderland Symphony—an hour-long choral and orchestral work—and a commission for three works for the FILUM Musikschüle Filderstadt that Alvarez will be rehearsing in Germany this fall. Following work with students from FILUM music school in Filderstadt, two ensembles were awarded second prize in the national finals in of the Bundeswettbewerb Jugend musiziert 2023 held in Zwickau, Germany playing ‘Boum!’ and ‘Tzimtzum’ by Alvarez.
Geoffrey’s Compositions
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