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 programmes 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 Vis-a-vis and handwerk. She has received commissions from the Acht Brücken Festival, Theater Bielefeld, Theater Münster and Forum Neue Musik, among others.

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. In 2021 she was honoured with the "Carmen Mateu Young Artist European Award" by the Fundació Castell de Peralada. She is currently a scholarship holder of the Akademie Musiktheater Heute (2022-2024).

Her interest in music education and outreach has led her to other exciting positions. Helena has been artistic director of the "AvantGarten Liedberg" festival since 2019 and has been working at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in the "Young Opera" section since the end of 2022. Before 2022, Helena passed by various teaching stations: from conservatory teaching in Spain to composition workshops in collaboration with the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn.

Helena found (and still finds) inspiration in films by Jacques Tati or Aki Kaurismäki, texts by Remedios Zafra, Dubravka Ugresic, Goran Petrovic 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.

by Mehmet Can Uçar - Nov. 2022

by Mehmet Can Uçar – November 2022

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