Agustín Fernández (composer)

Agustín Fernández (born 1958 ) is a Bolivian composer. Career In Bolivia Fernández began musical life as a child, singing and playing the charango in folk clubs, including Peña Ollantay, Peña Naira and the country’s then only television channel. Still a teenager he worked as a violinist and then principal viola with the National Symphony Orchestra and taught harmony at the National Conservatoire, while studying composition with Alberto Villalpando. He later studied in Japan with Takashi Iida and with Akira Ifukube, while working part-time at the Bolivian Embassy and as a language instructor at Nichisei Gakuin and later at Komagane Training Institute. In the United Kingdom, after obtaining an MMus at Liverpool University and a PhD at City University Fernández was composer-in-residence at Queen’s University Belfast since 1990 until 1994. Fernández’s work has been performed and acclaimed internationally, featuring at festivals such as Focus!, Summergarden (New York), ISEA (Montreal), International New Music Week (Bucharest), Latin American Music Festival (Caracas), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, London International Opera Festival and many others. Some of his folk arrangeme