Reinaldo Moya

“I am a huge believer in the magic of youth orchestras. They are such amazing institutions and some of my most cherished memories as a human and musician came from being a part of a youth orchestra. I'm thrilled and honored to be a part of this project, where my music can reach many young musicians throughout the country.”

Biography

Reinaldo Moya is a graduate of Venezuela’s El Sistema music education system.

He graduated from The Juilliard School with both masters and doctorate degrees, under the tutelage of Samuel Adler and Robert Beaser.

He is the recipient of the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letter, the 2015 McKnight Composers Fellowship, the Van Lier Fellowship from Meet the Composer and the Aaron Copland Award from the Copland House. In January 2020 he was announced as the winner of the inaugural recipient of the $20,000 Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Composer Award. He will write a new work for the Bangor Symphony Orchestra for the 20-21 Season.

He was the Composer-Residence at The Schubert Club in Minnesota from 2017-19, which led to the commissioning and premiere of his chamber opera Tienda in May 2019. The premiere was hailed by the Star Tribune for its "proud individuality... [and] textures of pulsing vibrancy, subtly shading harmonies to trace the fragile emotional arc of his central characters."

His family opera Memory Boy, with a libretto by Mark Campbell, was commissioned by the Minnesota Opera for its Project Opera and premiered in February of 2016. Excerpts from his opera Generalissimo (about the life, death and afterlife of a fictionalized Latin American dictator) have been performed in New York at Symphony Space and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall.

His violin concerto Vestida de mar was co-commissioned by the Greenwood Music Camp and the Lakes Area Music Festival. It received its premiere in the summer of 2019 with Francescas Anderegg as the soloist and conducted by Benjamin Rous and Gemma New. His orchestral piece Siempre Lunes, Siempre Marzo was performed by the New Jersey Symphony and The Juilliard Orchestra, under the batons of JoAnn Falletta and Carlos Miguel Prieto, respectively. In the fall of 2016, his Passacaglia for Orchestra was chosen by the audience and the musicians of the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra as the winner of the Earshot Composers Competition sponsored by the American Composers Orchestra.

Mr. Moya has taught at St. Olaf College and Interlochen Arts Camp, and is currently Assistant Professor of Composition at Augsburg University in Minneapolis.