Octavio Vazquez

Hailed by the press as “...a burning torch for the next century ..stunning ..superb” (The New Music Connoisseur, New York), “…melodicism and rhythmic buoyancy” (The New York Times), “…astonishingly virtuosic” (Soundboard Magazine), the music of Octavio Vazquez has been performed throughout the US, Europe, and Asia, in venues such as Carnegie Hall, the National Auditorium of Spain, Cologne's Philharmonie, and the Russian State Institute of Art. He has also worked in film and media scoring, and as an arranger, orchestrator and producer in crossover projects, most notably with Grammy award-winning bagpiper and pianist Cristina Pato, with whom he was nominated for the 2011 Spanish Music Academy Awards. Notable performers of his works include conductors such as Rossen Milanov, Dima Slobodeniouk, Carlos Kalmar, Paul Daniel, Paolo Bortolameolli, and Andrew Grams, and soloists as Hilary Hahn, Dmitri Berlinsky, Jonathan Gandelsman, Adam Levin, and Eldar Nebolsin. His works appear in more than 20 CDs, and have been recorded for labels including Naxos and Delos and by national radio and television networks in the US, Spain, Russia and China. A winner of numerous national and international prizes, he has received grants and commissions from the New York State Council on the Arts, New Music USA, Aspen Music Festival, Spanish Radio and Television Orchestra, Royal Galician Philharmonic, Galicia Symphony Orchestra, Galician Cultural Council, Meet the Composer, Fulbright Commission, and Chi-Mei Foundation among others. A featured composer at the 2015 SphinxConnect, recent highlights include MacDowell Colony, VCCA, and I-Park fellowships, and a rare invitation by the late Krzysztof Penderecki to his Beethoven Easter Festival. An avid educator and sought after adjudicator, Dr. Vazquez is currently associate professor of music and composition program director at the Nazareth College School of Music in Rochester, NY.