NURIA NÚÑEZ HIERRO

Composer Nuria Núñez Hierro explores through her music the potential of the performer–instrument duality, using extended instrumental techniques, amplification and the integration of the voice. Her works often incorporate sound objects with scenic qualities in order to expand the expressive possibilities of performers and to investigate new forms of behaviour and communication with the listener. At the same time, her music reveals a strong connection with nature and living beings, proposing a way of thinking about music inspired by the study of animal behaviour networks.

She trained at the Conservatorio Superior de Córdoba and at the Universität der Künste Berlin, where she completed her Master’s degree in Composition with honours. She subsequently received a two-year research grant at the Berlin Centre for Advanced Studies in Arts and Sciences (BAS, Graduate School UdK Berlin).

She has been awarded the 39th Reina Sofía Composition Prize, First Prize and the Audience Prize at the 15th Weimar Spring Festival, the Rome Prize awarded by the Academy of Arts of Germany (Villa Massimo/Casa Baldi), and First Prize from the Fundación Autor–CNDM. She has also been composer-in-residence with the Berlin Radio Orchestra, the Spanish Academy in Rome, the Thomas Mann Villa Aurora (Los Angeles), the Spanish National Youth Orchestra and the Thüringer Landesmusikakademie (Sondershausen).

In 2017 she received one of the Leonardo Scholarships from the BBVA Foundation, with which she brought to the stage her children’s opera La Isla, winner of the Best Opera Award and the Audience Award at the Young Audience Music Awards 2020.

Her music has been performed by leading soloists, ensembles and orchestras including Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Ascolta, B3: Brouwer Trio, Taller Sonoro, the Spanish National Orchestra and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (RSB), among others.