Jimmy López

Composer

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Jimmy López Biography 2025-26.docx English

Composer in Residence:
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal
San Diego Symphony

An “undeniably exciting composer” (Opera News), Jimmy López’s music displays “a brilliant command of orchestral timbres and textures” (Dallas Morning News) and “a virtuoso mastery of the modern orchestra” (The New Yorker). His works have been performed around the world by leading orchestras such as New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, and Orchestre symphonique de Montréal.

López has been appointed Composer-in-Residence with Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM) and San Diego Symphony (SDS) for the 2025/26 and 2026/27 seasons. Throughout the 2025/26 season, both orchestras will present works from López’s catalogue. OSM presents the tone poem Aino under conductor Tomáš Netopil, Perú Negro with Music Director Rafael Payare, and the string quartet La Caresse du Couteau performed by OSM musicians at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Meanwhile, SDS presents the piano concerto Ephemerae with Music Director Rafael Payare and pianist Javier Perianes, and Perú Negro for orchestra. As part of his residencies, López will appear in pre-concert talks and panel discussions and and will work closely with the orchestras’ education departments to work with local communities and mentor composition students. López’s sixth symphony, co-commissioned by both OSM and SDS, draws inspiration from the migratory patterns of Monarch butterflies. Its world premiere is scheduled for the 2026/27 season.

Upcoming in the 2025/26 season is a premiere of a new wind quintet written for both Ilmiö Ensemble and Wind Quintet of the Americas; performances of López’s Trombone Concerto Shift with co-commissioners San Francisco Symphony, featuring soloist Timothy Higgins, and San Diego Symphony, featuring soloist Jörgen van Rijen; and performances of López’s Symphony No.5: Fantastica with co-commissioner Bodensee Philharmonie Konstanz. Written for and dedicated to conductor Christian Reif, initial performances took place in the 2024/25 season with commissioners Cincinnati, Detroit, and Gävle Symphony Orchestras.

In the 2024/25 season, López served as Mead Composer-Curator with Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), where he curated an evening of chamber music for CSO’s MusicNOW series. The 2023/24 season saw the world premiere of the first part of Symphony No.4: Eclipse, performed by Houston Symphony under Andrés Orozco-Estrada, and the debut of his new song cycle Quiet Poems, written for tenor Michael Fabiano, which premiered at Arizona’s Tucson Desert Song Festival.

Further highlights include the orchestral work Loud (2023), which received its world premiere in San Francisco by International Pride Orchestra conducted by Christine Brandes. Loud was co-commissioned by San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra. López’s critically acclaimed orchestral tone poem Aino (2022) was commissioned and premiered by Orchestre de Paris, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Klaus Mäkelä, and has since been performed in the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic and the USA. In December 2022, mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges and Catalyst Quartet gave the world premiere of López’s song cycle Airs for Mother at 92NY Center for Culture & Arts in New York. López’s piano concerto Ephemerae (2021), commissioned by London Philharmonic Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado and Philadelphia Orchestra, continues to receive performances by its dedicatee Javier Perianes. López’s Symphony No.3: Altered Landscape (2020), a project in collaboration with the Nevada Museum of Art, was premiered in May 2022 by Reno Philharmonic conducted by Laura Jackson. The work received its UK premiere in 2023 by BBC Concert Orchestra and Anna-Maria Helsing.

Among López’s earlier orchestral output is Perú Negro (2012), which received its BBC Proms debut in 2023 with BBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Klaus Mäkelä. The much-loved Fiesta! (2007) has received over 130 performances worldwide, making it one of the most-performed contemporary works in the orchestral repertoire.

López has also written works for the stage, with the oratorio Dreamers receiving its world premiere in California in 2019 with Esa-Pekka Salonen and Philharmonia Orchestra. In 2015, Lyric Opera of Chicago commissioned López’s debut opera Bel Canto, based on Ann Patchett’s novel of the same name. It became the bestselling opera of the company’s 2015/16 season, was broadcast by PBS and was nominated at the 2016 International Opera Awards.

López’s discography includes four portrait albums dedicated to his works, notably 2022’s Aurora & Ad Astra, released by Pentatone and featuring Andrés Orozco-Estrada, violinist Leticia Moreno, and Houston Symphony. Aurora was nominated for a 2022 Latin GRAMMY award in the category of Best Classical Contemporary Composition. The same year, his song Where Once We Sang with lyrics by Mark Campbell was also recorded on Pentatone by mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and pianist Kirill Kuzmin.

A native of Lima, López studied at the city’s National Conservatory of Music before graduating with a Master of Music degree from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, and with a PhD from University of California, Berkeley. López currently lives in California.