Miguel Álvarez-Fernández (born 1979 in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

) is a

sound art Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, sound art ...

ist,

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

filmmaker Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, castin ...

, theorist and curator working between Madrid and

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

, where he has taught at the Electronic Music Studio of the

Technical University of Berlin The Technical University of Berlin (official name both in English and german: link=no, Technische Universität Berlin, also known as TU Berlin and Berlin Institute of Technology) is a public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was ...

.The semina
"The Sound of Meaning"
organized by the "Institut für Sprache und Kommunikation". He also lectures regularly at the Department of

Art History Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

and

Musicology Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...

of the

University of Oviedo The University of Oviedo ( es, Universidad de Oviedo, Asturian: ''Universidá d'Uviéu'') is a public university in Asturias (Spain). It is the only university in the region. It has three campus and research centres, located in Oviedo, Gijón ...

(Spain), and at the

European University of Madrid European University of Madrid (''Universidad Europea de Madrid'' in Spanish language, UEM) is a private university in Madrid, Spain. History Founded in 1995, the school was purchased in 1999 by Sylvan Learning Systems, Inc. In 2004, Sylvan L ...

as a specialist in

Sound Art Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, sound art ...

and

Electroacoustic music Electroacoustic music is a genre of popular and Western art music in which composers use technology to manipulate the timbres of acoustic sounds, sometimes by using audio signal processing, such as reverb or harmonizing, on acoustical instrumen ...

. His artistic and theoretical work addresses problematic concepts like the relationships between sexuality and music (both understood as socio-cultural constructions, rather than 'natural categories'), or the connections between interactive processes and the

illusion of control The illusion of control is the tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control events. It was named by U.S. psychologist Ellen Langer and is thought to influence gambling behavior and belief in the paranormal. Along with illusory supe ...

. Álvarez-Fernández has explored these issues in his

sound installation Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, sound art ...

s and musical compositions, both alone and as a member of the art group DissoNoiSex.

Career

The works of Álvarez-Fernández have been presented in several venues in Europe and America, including the

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía The ''Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía'' ("Queen Sofía National Museum Art Centre"; MNCARS) is Spain's national museum of 20th-century art. The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992, and is named for Queen Sofía. It ...

, the

National Auditorium of Music The Auditorio Nacional de Música (''National Auditorium of Music'') is a complex of concert venues located in Madrid, Spain and the main concert hall in the Madrid metropolitan area. It comprises two main concert rooms: a symphonic hall and a cham ...

and the

Residencia de Estudiantes The Residencia de Estudiantes, literally the "Student Residence", is a centre of Spanish cultural life in Madrid. The Residence was founded to provide accommodation for students along the lines of classic colleges at Bologna, Salamanca, Cambridge ...

(where Álvarez-Fernández was composer-in-residence from 2002 to 2005) in Madrid, the

, The Huset gallery in Copenhagen,

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

, the Eyebeam Gallery in New York and O'culto da Ajuda in

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

, among many others. He has also composed music for different audiovisual productions, including the film "A via láctea", by Brazilian director Lina Chamie, premiered at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

in 2007. As a musicologist and sound-art theorist, Álvarez-Fernández has lectured (and his writings have been published) in Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Denmark, Sweden, Macedonia, Serbia, Lithuania, Russia and the United States, among other countries. His work as a sound-art curator is widely recognized in Spain. For the project "Itinerarios del sonido""Itinerarios del sonido"
Project's webpage. (co-curated along with María Bella) fourteen internationally recognized artists were invited (in many cases, for the first time) to Madrid, in order to create a new sound piece that later would be listened to in specific bus-stops around the city. Participants of this project included

Vito Acconci Vito Acconci (, ; January 24, 1940 – April 27, 2017) was an influential American performance, video and installation artist, whose diverse practice eventually included sculpture, architectural design, and landscape design. His foundational p ...

Jorge Eduardo Eielson Jorge Eduardo Eielson (April 13, 1924 – March 8, 2006) was a Peruvian artist and writer. As an artist he is known for his quipus, a reinterpretation of an ancient Andean device, they are considered precursors of conceptual art. Life and ...

, Julio Estrada,

Luc Ferrari Luc Ferrari (February 5, 1929 – August 22, 2005) was a French composer of Italian heritage and a pioneer in musique concrète and electroacoustic music. He was a founding member of RTF's Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRMC), working alongsid ...

Bill Fontana Bill Fontana (born April 25, 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio) is known internationally for his pioneering experiments in sound art. Life and career Fontana attended the New School for Social Research in New York and studied both music and philosophy. ...

Susan Hiller Susan Hiller (March 7, 1940 – January 28, 2019) was an American-born artist who lived in London, United Kingdom. Her art practice included installation, video, photography, performance and writing. Early life and education Born in Tallah ...

Christina Kubisch Christina Kubisch (born 31 January 1948) is a German composer, sound artist, performance artist, professor and flautist. She composes both electronic and acoustic music for multimedia installations. She gained recognition in the mid-1970s from h ...

Adrian Piper Adrian Margaret Smith Piper (born September 20, 1948) is an American conceptual artist and Kantian philosopher. Her work addresses how and why those involved in more than one discipline may experience professional ostracism, otherness, racial ...

and

Trevor Wishart Trevor Wishart (born 11 October 1946) is an English composer, based in York. Wishart has contributed to composing with digital audio media, both fixed and interactive. He has also written extensively on the topic of what he terms " sonic art", a ...

, among others. In 2007, Álvarez-Fernández curated in Berlin "Offener Klang / Sonido Abierto" as part of the "Linux Audio Conference", with concerts and workshops at the

Technical university An institute of technology (also referred to as: technological university, technical university, university of technology, technological educational institute, technical college, polytechnic university or just polytechnic) is an institution of te ...

and at the

Instituto Cervantes Instituto Cervantes (the Cervantes Institute) is a worldwide nonprofit organization created by the government of Spain, Spanish government in 1991. It is named after Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616), the author of ''Don Quixote'' and perhaps the ...

Berlin. In April 2011 he curated, along with Chema de Francisco and Rubén Gutiérrez del Castillo, the "SON" Festival, which presented for the first time at the

Auditorio Nacional de Música The Auditorio Nacional de Música (''National Auditorium of Music'') is a complex of concert venues located in Madrid, Spain and the main concert hall in the Madrid metropolitan area. It comprises two main concert rooms: a symphonic hall and a cham ...

(Madrid) the newest generation of Spanish sound artists in a series of concerts, performances and sound installations. Also in 2011, Miguel Álvarez-Fernández received the IV "Cura Castillejo" prize, awarded at the Nits de Deshielo i Art Festival, organized in

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Valencian Community, Valencia and the Municipalities of Spain, third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is ...

by sound artist Llorenç Barber (the three previous recipients of the award being Francisco López,

Fátima Miranda Fátima Miranda is a Spanish singer and researcher born in Salamanca, Province of Salamanca, Spain. She has a bachelor's degree in history of art, with a specialization in modern art. As a singer, her compositions touch several genres like Mongol ...

and sound installation pioneer Luis Lugán). In 2015 he directed, in collaboration with Luis Deltell, the feature-length documentary "No escribiré arte con mayúscula" ("I will not write art with a capital letter"), devoted to the life and works of Spanish pioneer of

conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...

Isidoro Valcárcel Medina, premiered at the Festival Punto de Vista (

Pamplona Pamplona (; eu, Iruña or ), historically also known as Pampeluna in English, is the capital city of the Chartered Community of Navarre, in Spain. It is also the third-largest city in the greater Basque cultural region. Lying at near above ...

). In 2008 Miguel Álvarez-Fernández became host at

Radio Clásica Radio Clásica is a Spanish free-to-air radio station owned and operated by Radio Nacional de España (RNE), the radio division of state-owned public broadcaster Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE). It is the corporation's second radio station, and ...

Radio Nacional de España Radio Nacional de España (acronym RNE, branded rne, "National Radio of Spain") is the national state-owned public service radio broadcaster in Spain. RNE is the radio division and Televisión Española (TVE) is the television division of R ...

for the weekly radio broadcast Ars Sonora,Ars Sonora
Webpage/podcast of the radio program a cult program (founded in 1985) devoted to sound art and experimental music.

References

External links

"Itinerarios del sonido"
public sound-art project curated by Miguel Álvarez-Fernández
DissoNoiSex"Álvarez-Fernández: Sound Amateur"
article by Silvia Scaravaggi published by Digimag (Italy)

article by Miguel Álvarez-Fernández published by the HZ Journal (Sweden)

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20110722045652/http://www.musicadhoy.com/son/ "SON" Festival sound art project curated by Miguel Álvarez-Fernández at the

(Madrid)

Bibliography

*Álvarez Fernández, Miguel. 2005a.
Dissonance, Sex and Noise: (Re)Building (Hi)Stories of Electroacoustic Music
. In ''ICMC 2005: Free Sound Conference Proceedings, International Computer Music Conference, Escola Superior de Musica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain, September 4–10, 2005''. Barcelona: International Computer Music Conference; International Computer Music Association.; SuviSoft Oy Ltd. *Álvarez Fernández, Miguel. 2005b.

. ''Taller Sonoro: Revista cuatrimestral de música contemporánea'' 4 (January). ISSN 1887-2093 *Álvarez-Fernández, Miguel. 2005c. "El comisariado como metodología de investigación musicológica". ''Revista de Musicología'' 28, no. 2:1425–34. ISSN 0210-1459 *Álvarez-Fernández, Miguel. 2007a.
Posibilidades (e imposibilidades) de los "nuevos medios tecnológicos" en la creación sonora
. ''Sul Ponticello. Revista on-line de estudios musicales'' 7 (January). ISSN 1697-6886 *Álvarez-Fernández, Miguel. 2007b.

(seminar syllabus). *Anon. .d. "Miguel Álvarez-Fernández" Spanish Wikipedia article. *Bandrés, Jon. 2011.
Nace SON, festival para la nueva generación de artistas sonoros españoles
. ''RTVE.ES'', 8 April 2011. *Correa, Sergio. 2007.
Nuevos instrumentos para música nueva
. ''BBC MUNDO.COM'', 27 March 2007. *Prieto, Ruth. 2013.
''No puedo entender la música como algo distinto de la política'', interview with Miguel Álvarez-Fernández
. ''El Compositor Habla'', April 2013. *Reverter, Arturo. 2011.
SON. Músicadhoy se asoma a la cantera
. ''El Cultural'' 8 April 2011. *Sánchez, Sergio. 2013.
''España electroacústica'', interview with Miguel Álvarez-Fernández
. ''Blog del experto FNAC'', 2 August 2013. *Scaravaggi, Silvia. .d.br>Alvarez-Fernandez: Sound Amateur
. ''Digimag'' 27, sept 07. {{DEFAULTSORT:Alvarez-Fernandez, Miguel Experimental musicians Sound artists Spanish installation artists Spanish contemporary artists 21st-century classical composers Spanish musicologists Spanish classical composers Spanish male classical composers Artists from Madrid Complutense University of Madrid alumni Living people 1979 births University of Oviedo alumni Spanish radio personalities 21st-century male musicians