Leonardo Balada

He was born in Barcelona on September 22, 1933.  After studying piano and theory at the Liceu Conservatory in Barcelona, he moved to New York where he completed his composition studies at the Juilliard School in 1960.

Some of his best known works were composed in a style of great drama within the avant-garde of the sixties ("Guernica", "María Sabina", "Steel Symphony", "No-res" etc.). Later he is recognized as a pioneer in the symbiosis of ethnic music with avant-garde techniques, with which he has created a personal and influential style, a style initiated with "Sinfonía en Negro- Homenaje a Martin L.King" (1968) and "Homenajes a Casals y Sarasate" (1975). He has received several international awards

He has recorded a large number of his compositions on labels such as Deutsche Grammophone, The Louisville Orchestra Editions, New World, Albany and Naxos Records (15 monographic CDs) etc...among them "Steel Symphony" and "Music for Oboe and Orchestra" with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lorin Maazel, as well as the cantatas "Torquemada" and "Maria Sabina". One of his CDs with Naxos has been selected by Amazon.com as "One of the 10 best CDs of 2001" in the category of instrumental classical music and received the prestigious Rosette Award from Penguin Guide.