Team

Long Description Benjamín Juárez Echenique is an orchestra conductor and scholar with more than four decades of experience in the arts. He was born in Mexico City on July 17, 1951. He studied in Mexico at the National School of Music of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), at the California Institute of the Arts, where he obtained his Master of Fine Arts in Music, as well as in Italy, France and England. He was principal guest conductor and assistant conductor of the State of Mexico Symphony Orchestra from 1979 to 1981; associate conductor of the Mexico City Philharmonic from 1983 to 1987; and music director of the Great Mexico City Festival in 1989-90. He has given lectures and conducted workshops on music and arts in Mexico and abroad, where in 1984, Juárez was honored as the first Latin American to conduct an orchestra in China. He served as Head of the Music Department at UNAM, Music Director of the Great Mexico City Festival, and taught at UNAM, the National Conservatory and the Higher School of Music of the National Institute of Fine Arts. He also founded the early music ensemble Angelicum de Puebla, dedicated to the recovery of 17th-century music from the Puebla Cathedral Archive. From September 2006 to August 2009 he served as General Director of Mexico's National Center for the Arts (CENART). On August 4, 2010, Benjamín E. Juárez assumed the position of Dean of the College of Fine Arts at Boston University.

Long Description Enrico Chapela, born in Mexico City in 1974, is a distinguished composer and guitarist. He studied a bachelor's degree in guitar and composition at CIEM, completed a master's degree at the University of Paris VIII, and is currently pursuing a doctorate at UNAM. He has received numerous awards, including fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National System of Art Creators, and international composition prizes. Chapela has received commissions from prestigious orchestras and concert halls worldwide, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, the Seattle Symphony and the BBC Scottish Symphony. His music has been performed in North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and Oceania by orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony, the National Symphony of Mexico and the London Philharmonic, among others. He has worked with renowned ensembles and soloists, and his compositions have been conducted by prominent figures such as Gustavo Dudamel and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Additionally, he has composed scores for seven Mexican feature films, notably "Somos lo que hay" by Jorge Michel Grau and "Amar no es querer" by Guillermo Barba. Chapela is general director of the Núcleo Integral de Composición (NICO) and academic director of the Centro de Investigación y Estudios de la Música (CIEM). He hosted the radio program METAMUSICA on Opus 94.5 (IMER) from 2011 to 2017. His music is published by Boosey & Hawkes and has been broadcast in numerous countries around the world.

Long Description Marisa Canales began her flute studies in Mexico and then moved to Philadelphia to obtain her bachelor's degree at the Philadelphia College of Performing Arts (now University of the Arts) under the guidance of Adeline Tomasone. She graduated with Magna Cum Laude distinction. She later completed postgraduate studies in France with Jean-Michel Varache at the Versailles Conservatory, earning first prizes in flute and chamber music. She founded and directs the record label Urtext Digital Classics, which has nearly 300 titles distributed worldwide. She was nominated for a Latin GRAMMY as best music producer in the classical album category. She alternates her entrepreneurial activity with performances as a soloist and in chamber music programs in Mexico and abroad. She has performed in countries such as Spain, Germany, France and the United States, and has been a soloist with major orchestras, including the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico and the London Symphony Orchestra, with which she recorded Lalo Schifrin's Caribbean Concerto. Committed to contemporary music, she has commissioned and premiered some fifty works, of which nearly thirty have been dedicated to her by composers such as Samuel Zyman, Arturo Márquez and Gabriela Ortiz. She currently divides her time between Boston and Mexico City. https://www.marisacanales.com/

Long Description: Lidia Xochiquetzal Ruiz Ortiz is a retired researcher from CENIDIM, with a background in History from UNAM and in oboe from the National Conservatory of Music. Her career has focused on music librarianship, ethnomusicology and the documentation of Mexican music. She has coordinated important projects such as the National Network of Musical Archives and created databases on Mexican music. A specialist in Rodolfo Halffter and Blas Galindo, she has published books and articles about them and other musicians. Her work has been fundamental in the organization and preservation of score archives, such as those of the League of Composers of Mexico and the composer Ana Lara. She has collaborated on radio programs and participated in projects such as the Virtual Library of Mexican Orchestral Music. Despite being retired, she continues with her Archive of Mexican Music, documenting more than thirty thousand works and working on a dictionary of women dedicated to music.

Long Description Originally from Mexico City. He studied composition at the UNAM Faculty of Music with Gabriela Ortiz and Francisco Cortés-Álvarez. In 2019 he received the fellowship of the Arturo Márquez Extraordinary Chair at UNAM, an opportunity to take classes with the renowned Mexican composer for a year. In 2020 he was selected for the FONCA Young Creators program and won first place in the National Composition Competition for Symphony Orchestra #EstarMejor at the Universidad Panamericana. He subsequently became a fellow of the Emerging Composers Fellowship at Concertia (Houston, 2021-2022) and won third place in the Raíces orchestral competition organized by the Jalisco Ministry of Culture and the Jalisco Philharmonic. In 2021 he was the first Mexican composer invited by the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing to compose a work for the International Forum of the Music Education Alliance (CCOM). His music has been performed in Mexico, the United States, Costa Rica, Colombia, China and Finland by soloists and ensembles such as the National Symphony Orchestra, the Jalisco Philharmonic Orchestra and the Eduardo Mata Youth Orchestra of UNAM. In 2024 he won the Arturo Márquez Chamber Orchestra Composition Competition (SACM-INBAL) and was once again selected for FONCA Young Creators, establishing himself as one of the most prominent emerging voices in contemporary Mexican composition.

Sandra Ixchel González Ruiz is an editorial coordinator and research assistant with experience in managing cultural projects. Her work in the field of musical research includes serving as assistant to professor Xochiquetzal Ruiz Ortiz at CENIDIM. In this capacity, she was responsible for the search of scores for the "Practical Guide for Programming Mexican Orchestral Music: 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries." She has also coordinated the editing of publications such as the Anthology "Códice Tambuco," produced with maestro Ricardo Gallardo, and the 25th Anniversary book of ONIX, with director Alejandro Escuer. In the area of technical and administrative assistance, she collaborates with composer Enrico Chapela Barba at the Núcleo Integral de Composición school and with Bé Pastissería. She has experience in public relations, sales and social media management. Her profile is complemented by expertise in billing, budget preparation and copywriting.