Igor Santos

Igor Santos (b.1985) is a Brazilian-American composer of acoustic and electro-acoustic concert music. His works have been performed by groups such as eighth blackbird, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Spektral Quartet and The Florida Orchestra.

Igor is currently Ph.D. candidate in Music Composition at the University of Chicago. He received his Master’s degree from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied under Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon and Carlos Sánchez-Gutiérrez. At Eastman he was an active member of the Ossia New Music group, assisting in organizing and promoting concerts of contemporary music. He received his B.M. in composition from the University of South Florida, where he was active as board member and pianist for the USF Composer’s Consortium. Igor is currently studying under Shulamit Ran, Marta Ptaszynska, Augusta Read Thomas and Anthony Cheung. Additional studies include workshops and festivals such as ManiFeste, Synthetis, Fontainebleau, and Brevard Music Center.

Quiet Rooms (excerpt):

In the Composer’s Own Words:
ploy, pivot (2014) is the first work in a series of pieces of mine that attempt to create a narratological structure using the superposition of music with completely different characters. This is clear, for instance, in the harp solo music, which is always punctuated and interrupted by other abrasive, stubborn gestures. Other instances of interruption govern and organize most of the rhetoric in the music – either by cancelling or triggering different textures, layers and affects.

The piece was originally written for a reading session at the University of Chicago, under conductor Cliff Colnot.