Rodolfo Ledesma

Rodolfo Ledesma - composer (b. 14 August 1954, Cali). Colombian composer of mostly orchestral, chamber and piano works that have been performed in the Americas, Asia and Europe. Mr. Ledesma studied music theory and piano privately with his father as a child in Cali and began composing at age ten. He studied music at the Conservatorio Antonio María Valencia of the Instituto Departamental de Bellas Artes in Cali from 1962–72 and civil engineering at the Universidad Santo Tomás in Bogotá from 1978–84. He then studied composition with Roque Cordero and conducting with Julian Dawson at Illinois State University in Normal from 1985–87 and composition with John Van der Slice and conducting with David Gray at the University of Miami in 1990–91. He later studied composition with Martin Christoph Redel at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold in 1999–2000. He earned his master's degree in philosophy at the Universidad del Valle in Cali. Among his honours are the Premio Nacional Colcultura in Bogotá (1992, for Metamorphosis) and Second Prize in the competition Oreste Sindici in Ceccano (2003, for Eclosión). His music has been performed in Colombia, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, and the USA. He has taught music theory as an associate professor at the Universidad del Valle since 1993. He was also an invited lecturer at the workshop Word and Music at Indiana University in Bloomington in 1994.