Martin Herraiz (Brazil)
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Martin Herraiz was born in 1980 and began his musical studies at the age of 10. Mostly self-taught as a composer, he was a finalist at Brazil's 1st National Contest of Symphonic Band Arrangements (Tatuí, 2000), at the Stockhausen/AcidPlanet electronic composition contest (2003), and at the Nieuw Ensemble/BAMdialogue Brazilian Composers’ Competition (Holland, 2009).
His compositions have been performed in several Brazilian cities, as well as in the United States, England, Holland, Sweden, Germany, and Argentina.
He directed from 2003 to 2005 the music company MEFISTO, and has also performed in several other projects related to experimental and microtonal music. He co-organized in 2007 the 5th National Composers Meeting (ENCUn), which took place in São Paulo over a week of concerts (including dozens of premieres), workshops and roundtables, among other activities.
In 2008 he co-produced the Sonâncias ensemble's debut CD Ressonâncias, featuring works by 10 living brazilian composers, including his own misantrópicos I, especially written for the project. That same year saw the premiere of WASTE IT, for 7 percussionists, commissioned for the PIAP ensemble (Percussion Group of the São Paulo State University Arts Institute) by its director, John Boudler.
In 2009, zonder titel was premiered in The Hague (Holland) by the Nieuw Ensemble of Amsterdam under conductor Celso Antunes. In 2010, he organized the first Brazilian performance of the intercontinental festival 60x60 (www.voxnovus.com/60x60), featuring his acousmatic miniature Migraine Impromptu. That same year, he wrote, produced and directed his first music theater play, um escarro na manhã (“a sputum in the morning”), commissioned for the Conexões Sonoras (“sonic connections”) exhibition in São Paulo. He works since 2007 as a music transcriber and editor for Presto (www.presto.mus.br).
He holds a bachelor's degree in graphic design and has recently earned his masters in musicology at the São Paulo State University (UNESP) with a dissertation on Frank Zappa's orchestral music.