Benet Casablancas

Benet Casablancas Domingo (born April 2, 1956 in Sabadell) is a Spanish composer and musicologist.

Casablancas started to study music in Barcelona´s Conservatory of Music and privately with Josep Soler Sardà and then moved to Vienna, where he attended lessons in the Vienna Academy of Music with Friedrich Cerha and Karl Heinz Füssl. He also graduated in Philosophy in Universidad Autònoma de Barcelona (1982) and has a PhD in musicology by the same university. He has always combined composition with teaching and research. In 2000 he published the book “El humor en la música” and in 2002 he was appointed Academic Director of the Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu of Barcelona.

Since the 1990s, Casablancas’ music enjoys an increasing international diffusion. His “New Epigrams” (1997), which have been performed all around the world (USA, Russia, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, Venezuela, Croatia, Lituania, Japan, etc.), represented Spain at the ISMC World Music Days Vilnius (2008). Also in 2008, the “Seven Scenes of Hamlet” had its UK premiere in a performance by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and in 2009 his work “Alter Klang. Impromptu for Orchestra” was first played in the Netherlands and Belgium by the NJO of the Netherlands, in Sweden by the Malmö Symfoni Orkester and performed again in Belgium by the Orchestre National de Belgique. In the chamber field, the Arditti Quartet gave the premiere of Casablancas' "String Quartet n.3". In December 2009 he was invited to visit Japan (Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka), where he gave lectures and master-classes and attended several concerts which included the JP Prémière of his set of "Haiku".

In the last years, several monographic concerts have taken place in Vienna at the Musikverein, Madrid (Auditorio 400 del Museo Reina Sofía, Música dhoy, Residencia de Estudiantes, Círculo de Bellas Artes) and Barcelona (L´Auditori). They were followed, in February 2010, by a Composer’s Portrait by Perspectives Ensemble in Miller Theatre of New York, conducted by Angel Gil-Ordoñez, which included the US Premiere of the "Seven Scenes from Hamlet" (with the actor Chuck Cooper in the soloist role) and the World Premiere of the new work, “Four Darks in Red”, after Rothko, commissioned by Miller Theatre with the collaboration of the Foundation for Iberian Music. There has been another premiere planned for 2010, that of his “Chamber Concerto n.1 for Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra”, which has been commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philarmonic Orchestra. Also in 2010, his work “New Epigrams” was performed by The London Simfonietta, conducted by Frank Ollu, in Barcelona (“'Festival Nous Sons'09', L'Auditori”) and in Madrid (Saison of CDMC, Auditorio 400 Museo Reina Sofia)

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