Based in Toronto, Canada
Website: artsongcp.com
“I’ve always been inspired by nature: from the sound of the ocean waves to the myriad of colours of our natural word. Through my art I wish not only to call attention to the damage we create but to inspire the world to let go of greed and come together in search for sustainable solutions. I dream of a Green future where we are all in harmony with Nature.”
Biography
Alondra Vega-Zaldivar is a composer, performer and teacher residing in Toronto, Canada. Her pieces have been performed across Canada, the United States and reaching as far as Milna, Croatia.
Born in Havana, Cuba where she began her musical studies in Choral Conducting, she came to Canada in 2007 and obtained her MMus in Composition from the University of Western Ontario in June 2015. She is the Second Prize winner of the Costello Composition Prize 2016 by the Lyra Society and one of the winners of the GRIT Collaborative’s ‘Water Our World.’
Fresh out of school she grew weary of ever applying to competitions and calls for scores and never hearing back. She decided it was time to create more performance opportunities not only for herself, but for living composers and performers.
The idea evolved into the Art Song Collaborative Project, which brings Canadian and International composers and artists together for the collaboration of a new opera each year. The opera is told through the art songs of the composers and aims to showcase a social, economical, political or environmental issue that assails our world.
She creates the stories for the pieces, composes for the project and also performs the pieces along with a group of performers. They continue to grow and have shifted their focus to advocate for a Green future and a clean planet.
Work Samples
Two Cardinals (2019) for piano. Performed by Rashaan Allwood.
“Every year in the spring, a myriad of birds soar the skies calling out for a mate. One day a couple of Cardinals started coming to the tree by my window and I fell in love with their beautiful colours. I imagined how a young Cardinal, who is looking for a female for the first time in his life, would feel. How it would hop from branch to branch singing it’s mating call yearning companionship; the excitement as he first spots her; his apprehension as he tries different calls in the hopes to grab her attention; and then his enthusiasm when she joins him and sings with him.”
Rise of the Cuban Cicada (2014) for harp and percussion. Performed by Sanya Eng, harp, and Ryan Scott, percussion.
“Inspired by the afro-Cuban rhythm of Guaguancó, the constant and polyrhythmic sound of cicadas, the Sunrise and the beginning of a new and busy day – for the cicadas. The light and shimmering sounds at the beginning are my interpretation of the thin and translucent first rays of sun seeping through the night sky, followed by a slow “wake up” of the Cicadas as they slowly begin their busy day.”