Juan Carlos Tolosa


Juan Carlos Tolosa is an Argentinian composer, pianist and conductor.

Studies

Juan Carlos Tolosa began his musical studies in 1972 at Instituto Domingo Zípoli in Córdoba, where he received the degree as choir master. After dropping law, he entered Universidad Nacional de Córdoba to pursue a career as a composer from 1986 to 1989. In 1989, he left for Europe and settled in Brussels. He studied at Brussels Conservatory, where he received composition prizes in the classes of Paul-Baudouin Michel and Daniel Capelletti, for orchestration, forms, harmony and musical theory. At the same time, between 1990 and 1998, he regularly attended the Ars musica contemporary music festival composition seminars and workshops, with the participation of Luciano Berio, Witold Lutosławski, György Ligeti, Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Brian Ferneyhough, Pascal Dusapin, Iannis Xenakis, Magnus Lindberg, Luca Francesconi and Wolfgang Rihm.

European career

He created Black Jackets Company together with Pierre Kolp, Francis Ubertelli and David Nuñezañez, and then the Black Jackets Ensemble. His music has been performed in several countries, such as Argentina, Venezuela, Chile, Japan, Luxemburg, Spain, Belgium and Germany, within prestigious festivals such as Ars musica or the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile contemporary music festival.
Along with his pure music and musical theatre works, Tolosa has collaborated with the choreographers Marian Del Valle, Barbara Manzetti and Gabriela Carrizo, as well as with the film makers Giovanni Cioni and Paco Aragón. He has been teaching Aesthetics of 20th century Music and Arts at Institut Jaques-Dalcroze since 1998, and is the conductor of the Black Jackets Ensemble since 2000.

Latin American career

In 1999, Tolosa taught a 20th-century music aesthetics seminar at Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Argentina.
In 2000 he wrote, produced, directed and hosted a series of twelve radio shows on contemporary music, La Odisea Musical del Siglo XX, broadcast by Nacional Córdoba. The same year he made his debut with the Argentinian pianist Germán Náger as the Náger & Tolosa Piano Duo.
In 2001, he created the Cordoba Ensamble, and then the Laboratorio Contemporáneo del Córdoba Ensamble, acting as the musical director of both.
He started teaching composition and conduction at La Colmena, Córdoba, in 2002 and, since 2003, has been the artistic director of the Cordoba Contemporary Music Festival.

Works