Cuban-Dutch composer Keyla Orozco established herself in The Netherlands as an independent artist since 1996. She is currently living in the US (Washington DC), and sharing her professional career between the two countries mainly.
Awards and Fellowships
Orozco’s compositional work has been awarded among others with the Guggenheim and the Cintas Fellowships in USA, First and Second Prizes at International Composition Contest René Amengüal in Chile, and the National Cuban prize for Symphonic Composition UNEAC. She was granted a residency fellowship at MacDowell Colony (USA) as well as a Two-Year Grant for Composition by the Dutch Peeforming Arts Funds (Fonds Podiumkunsten).
She has received numerous commissions to write for outstanding international ensembles and soloists such as Nederlands Blazers Ensemble, Nederlands Kamerkoor, Nederlands Fluitorkest, Asko Ensemble, Nieuw Ensemble, Combustion Chamber, De Ereprijs, Ricciotti Ensemble, David Kweksilber Big Band, Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras, ZOFO Duet and many others. Her works are regularly performed in festivals and events around the world, at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Carré Theater, Muziekgebouw aan het Ij, Bimhuis, Parasdiso Theater, among others.
Teaching
She started teaching in 1993 as a professor of Theory at the Instituto Superior de Artes in Havana. Between 1996-2012 she worked in the Netherlands both at institutions and privately as a Piano, Composition and Music Theory teacher. Besides becoming assistant professor of Composition in the class of Theo Loevendie at the Conservatory of Amsterdam, she taught Piano at the British School in The Netherlands. She is currently a music faculty at Washington International School.
Other professional activities
After organizing diverse multi-disciplinary events in Cuba and The Netherlands, Keyla Orozco founded PerpetuumM Foundation in 2004, to promote Latin-American Arts and Culture in The Netherlands. Festival ‘Q-ba Música’ (2004) and Series ‘Latijns-Amerikaanse componisten aan het ij’ (2006-07) were projects directed and co-produced by Keyla Orozco within this enterprise, in which she worked till 2008.
Her curiosity for exploring Latin-American folk rhythms and the idea of integrating them into her compositional work, leaded her in 2006 to a field-research on the traditional Venezuelan/Colombian Music known as “Música Llanera’. This project was subsidized by the Dutch Performing Arts Funds. As a result, her later compositions have been strongly influenced by this music, being the case of Estudio del Pajarillo, Met de schoenen and Piezas de bolsillo.
Studies
Keyla Orozco received professional music education since the age of 8, starting with Piano at Esteban Salas Conservatory in Santiago de Cuba. In 1988 she obtained her diploma in piano pedagogy and performance at Escuela Nacional de Artes (ENA) in Havana, under the guidance of Yleana Bautista. Later, she studied composition at Instituto Superior de Artes (ISA) in Havana with Harold Gramatges, obtaining her Bachelor degree in 1993. Between 1995-98 she followed Advanced Composition studies in The Netherlands with Theo Loevendie, at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and Conservatory of Amsterdam.