Biography
Jimmy López was born in Lima, Peru in 1978. From 1998 until 2000 he studied with Enrique Iturriaga at the National Conservatory of Music in Lima, and from 2000 till 2007, with Veli-Matti Puumala and Eero Hämeenniemi at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, from where he obtained his Master of Music Degree in 2007.
He has been awarded the following prizes: 2009 GEORGES LADD PRIX DE PARIS (University of California at Berkeley), KRANICHSTEINER MUSIKPREIS at the '2008 Darmstadt International Course for Contemporary Music' (Germany); 2008 MORTON GOULD YOUNG COMPOSER AWARD (New York) for his concertino for piano, strings, brass and percussion titled "Epiphany"; 2008 NICOLA DE LORENZO PRIZE (UC Berkeley) for "Epiphany"; ORCHESTRA COMPOSITION AWARD - SävellYS 2006 Composition Competition (Finland) for his orchestral work "The Plea"; STIPENDIENPREIS at the International Course for Contemporary Music, Darmstadt 2006 (Germany) for his chamber work "Kraftmaschine"; HONORABLE MENTION at the Irino Composition Prize for Chamber Music 2005 (Japan) for his string quartet "La Caresse du Couteau"; FIRST PRIZE - ALEA III 2003 International Composition Competition (USA) for his piece “K’asa” for violin and piano; and the ORCHESTRA PRIZE - CCA International Composition Competition 2002 (Taiwan) for his orchestral work “Carnynx”.
Mr. López is currently working for a PhD in music composition at the University of California, Berkeley with Edmund Campion. He is a member of SUOMEN SÄVELTÄJÄT (Society of Finnish Composers), ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), CIRCOMPER (Circle of Composers of Peru) and the San Francisco Chapter of the Recording Academy (GRAMMY). He is a founding member and Vice President of kohoBeat Musical Association in Finland.
His music has been performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Aspen Music Festival and Donaueschingen Contemporary Music Festival and by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, Symphony Orchestra of Chile and the National Symphony Orchestra of Peru, among others. His portrait CD titled ‘Musuq Peru’ was released under the label Filarmonika LLC in 2008.
Recent premieres include "Lago de Lágrimas" (concerto for flute and orchestra) with soloist Jessica Warren-Acosta, conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra in 2009, and "15 études for string octet" by the Arditti Quartet and Jack Quartet during the 2010 Darmstadt Contermporary Music Festival. Future collaborations include performances by conductor Lorraine Villancourt and the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya and the Boston Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestras, conductor Darrel Ang and the Singapore Youth Orchestra of the World and conductor David Claudio and the Sibelius Academy Orchestra.