Works performed by Earplay:

Time Fields III
Trio 'Wortschatten'

Hèctor Parra (b.1976 in Barcelona) studied at the Conservatorium of Music in Barcelona, where he was awarded prizes with distinction in Composition, Piano and Harmony. He studied piano with Mª Jesús Crespo and composition under David Padros, Brian Ferneyhough, and Jonathan Harvey, as well as Michael Jarrell at the Conservatorium of Music in Geneva. Master in Composition awarded by the University of Paris VIII, annual course in Composition at Ircam and post-graduate courses at the CNSMD Lyon. He actively participated in the composition workshops of Royaumont, Centre Acanthes, Takefu (in Japan) and Impuls Graz.

Premieres of his works have been performed by the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Klangforum Wien, the Arditti String Quartet, Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble Contrechamps, musikFabrik, KNM Berlin, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Liège, Holland Symfonia, National Orchestra d'Ile-de-France, Barcelona and Catalonia National Orchestra, Proxima Centauri, etc.

He received commissions from the Republic of France, the Ircam-Centre Pompidou (on five occasions), the Spanish Ministry of Culture, the Government of Catalonia and institutions such as the Berlin Academy of Arts, WDR, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Klangforum Wien/Impuls, ADK-Berlin, Strasbourg Festival, CDMC (Madrid), National Orchestra d'Ile-de-France, IVM (Valencia), Musicadhoy / Schauspielhaus Salzburg, Caja Madrid and the Selmer Society (Paris). His works were also performed at the international festivals of Lucerne, Avignon, Agora-Ircam, Witten, Stuttgart Opera House, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Maison de la Danse de Lyon, Ultraschall Berlin, Guggenheim NY, Quincena Musical de San Sebastián, Traiettorie (Parma), Arcana, Muziekgebouw (Amsterdam), Konzerthaus Wien, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Suntory Hall in Tokyo...

Winner of the Ernst von Siemens Composition Prize (2011), in 2009 he received the Tendencies Prize of the Spanish newspaper El Mundo (Barcelona edition). In 2007 he won the Earplay Donald Aird Composers Competition prize (USA). In 2005 he was unanimously awarded the Tremplin Prize given by the Ensemble Intercontemporain and was finalist in the International Gaudeamus Competition. In 2002 he won the INAEM Prize for Musical Composition (The National Institute for Performing Arts and Music of Spain).

His works are published by Tritó (Barcelona). A monographic CD with his trios and chamber music pieces performed by the ensemble Recherche has been published by the label KAIROS (Vienna, 2008). In 2010, KAIROS published a studio recorded version of his chamber opera Hypermusic Prologue, with a libretto of the renowned Harvard physicist Lisa Randall, played by the Ensemble Intercontemporain and IRCAM. The stage design was done by the artist Matthew Ritchie and has been presented in Paris, in the Liceu of Barcelona, Luxembourg and Brussels, and in a partial staging at the Guggenheim Museum of New York. In 2010 he composed the music for the film Equinoxe by Laurent Carceles, recorded by the Ensemble Intercontemporain, first shown in March 2011.

He is currently Professor of Electroacoustic Composition at the Conservatorium of Aragon (Spain) and resident composer at Ircam in Paris. He lives in Paris since 2002.