GARCÍA ISLAS composer
As a Mexican and Canadian composer and lecturer, she has participated in international festivals and symposia such as the Eigenzeit 2023 Musik von jetzt (Duisburg, Germany), XXIV New Music Miami ISCM FESTIVAL 2021, the Contemporary Encounters by Meitar Ensemble/International New Music Festival (Israeli), the International Summer Course for Composers, Synthetis (Poland), the International Festival Montréal/Nouvelles Musiques, the Nuit Blanche Festival, (Canada), the Loop6 Festival (Belgium), the Festival Cultural de Mayo (Mexico-Australia) and in April 2022, she was one of the five composers worldwide chosen for the Stockholm Chamber Brass Academy to write an original work for brass quintet.
Much of Cristina’s more recent work reflects the duality between darkness and light. Also, the theme of legacy, ritual, mysticism and the force of Nature. This is particularly see-through in her orchestral music La pierre solaire (2009-17), Na’Lu’Um (2018) as well as in chamber pieces like El Evangelio de Judas (2013), Stáku (2015) and the String Quartet No. 1 Skeleton Leaves (2018), this last being written for the JACK Quartet (New York). Her overture Lord Have Mercy on the 21st Century was commissioned and premiered by the OFUNAM orchestra in 2020. Her latest orchestral work Ré_Silience was commissioned by the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal in 2021 and this same year, her piece Marcha Trigarante de los 200 años was premiered by the Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Among her grants and fellowships are the Canadian grant Beethoven's Legacy (2020) from the Orchestre Métropolitain and Yannick Nézet-Séguin (Montréal), a grant from the Society of Canadian Music, the Wilfrid-Pelletier’s award, the Mexican grants Sistema Nacional de Creadores/FONCA (2019-22) and Jóvenes Creadores /FONCA (2010 and 2015).
Cristina García Islas is currently teaching at the UNAM and the Anáhuac University in Mexico City. In 2018, she held the position of tutor with the UNAM and the Université Paris-Sorbonne. Invited lectures and presentations include the IRCAM, the IREMUS, the Conservatoire du 10e Hector Berlioz (Paris), the Université Laval, Les Jardins du Précambrien de René Derouin and the Consulate General of Mexico in Montréal (Canada).
She holds the Doctorate degree in Composition from the Université de Montréal and the Master's and Bachelor's degrees in Music from the Conservatoire de Musique et d’art Dramatique du Québec (Montréal).