Born in October 1994 in Tona, Barcelona, Helena is a freelance composer. She studied her Bachelor's degree in Composition at the Conservatory of Music of Aragón (Zaragoza) until 2017. In the last year of her studies, she received a scholarship for an artistic residency at the "Etopia Centro de Arte y Tecnología" in Zaragoza.
She currently lives in Cologne, where she has already completed her two Master degrees in "Composition - Instrumental Music" with Prof. Markus Hechtle and "Composition - Electronic Music" with Prof. Michael Beil at the University of Music and Dance.
Her compositions have been created in collaboration with ensembles such as Musikfabrik, FRAMES Percussion, Meitar Ensemble, Trio Catch and handwerk. She has received commissions from the Acht Brücken Festival, Theater Bielefeld, Theater Münster and Forum Neue Musik, among others. Her music has travelled to countries such as Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, The Netherlands, Israel and Greece.
She received the "Beca Artística Ciutat de Vic" scholarship (2019), the D-bü Prize together with her colleagues from the "Oops Kollektiv" (2020) and the "Neustadt Kultur" grant (2022), among others. She won the second Edition of "Carmen Mateu Young Artist European Award" (2021) by the Fundació Castell de Peralada. She is currently a scholarship holder of the Akademie Musiktheater Heute (2022-2024).
Her interest in curatorial work, education and public relations has led her to other exciting positions. Since 2019, Helena has been the artistic director of the festival “AvantGarten Liedberg” and was part of the outreach team “Junge Oper” at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons. In addition, Helena went through various teaching stations: from conservatory teaching in Spain to composition workshops in collaboration with the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn.
Helena finds inspiration in films by Jacques Tati or Aki Kaurismäki, texts by Remedios Zafra, Dubravka Ugrešić, Goran Petrović or the paintings of Leonora Carrington, Ethel Adnan or Xenia Hausner. Her sound palette moves somewhere between documentary and dreamy, and she often visits spaces that can be either deserted, cold, humorous, kitsch or fresh.
