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Birthdays:

Dying days:

Events:

• Cuarteto de cuerdas nº 1 (String Quartet no. 1, 1987) Premiered and recorded on CD by the Enesco Quartet in Paris.
• Soledat (1987) Work for three percussionists, premiered at Vilanova i La Geltrú conducted by Joan Guinjoan. Vibraphone, Xylophone, Glockenspiel, Military Drum, Cymbal and Gong.
• Albebargn (1987) Trio for students. Flute, Violin and Cello
• Cuarteto de cuerdas nº 2 (String Quartet no. 2, 1988) Premiered by the Arcana Quartet in Barcelona.
• Burning eyes of heaven (1989) Premiered in Barcelona by Música XXI, conducted by Miquel Gaspà. Flute, Clarinet (B flat), Violin, Cello, Piano and Recitalist
• Pieza para violonchelo y piano (Piece for Cello and Piano, 1990) Premiered in Palermo by members of the Conjunto Instrumental del Conservatorio de Badalona.
• Wagner lieder (1990) For voice and piano
• Concierto para violonchelo y orquesta (Concert for Cello and Orchestra, 1990)
• Variaciones sobre el Pierrot Lunaire (Variations on Pierrot Lunaire, 1992) Premiered by the ensemble Música XXI in Barcelona. Flute and Contrabass Clarinet
• Quinteto para piano e instrumentos de viento (Quintet for Piano and Wind Instruments, 1992) Winner of the Primer Premio Iberoamericano de Composición Reina Sofía. Oboe, Clarinet (B flat), Horn, Fagot and Piano
• Trio para violín, violonchelo y piano (Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano, 1993) Winner of the IV Premio Sant Joan de Vilatorrada de Composición Musical a prize for composers under the age of twenty-five. Premiered at Sant Joan de Vilatorrada by the Trio Barcino.
• La jeune martyre (1993) Winner of the IX Premio de Composición Musical Reina Sofía 1993, Fundación Ferrer Salat. Premiered by the Spanish Radio Television Symphony Orchestra at the Teatro Monumental in Madrid and conducted by Segiu Comissiona. Recorded on CD by R.T.V.E (Spanish Public Television and Radio). Baritone and Symphony Orchestra
• Sinfonía de cámara para 15 instrumentistas (Chamber Symphony for 15 instrumentalists, 1993) Flute, Piccolo, Oboe, Clarinet (B flat), Bass Clarinet (B flat), Fagot, Horn, Trombone, Piano, Celeste, Organ, Harp, Percussion, Violin I, Violin II, Viola, Cello and Double bass
• Le tombeau de Maurice Ravel (1993) Premiered by the Trio Mompou in Barcelona on 6th November 1993. Violin, Cello and Piano
• Ghetto perpetuo (1994) Commissioned by the Centro para la Difusión de la Música Contemporánea. Premiered at the XIV Festival Internacional de Música de Torroella de Montgrí by the Soloists of Ibercamera. Flute, Clarinet (B flat), Violin, Cello and Piano
• Dos piezas (Two Pieces, 1995) Premiered at the Primeras Jornadas de Música Contemporánea de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Instrument and piano
• Sinfonía (Symphony, 1995) Premiered by the Orquesta Sinfónica de Barcelona y Nacional de Cataluña at the Palau de la Música Catalana and conducted by Franz-Paul Decker. Symphony Orchestra
• Cuarteto de cuerdas nº 3 (String Quartet no. 3, 1996) Commissioned by the Fundación Juan March. Premiered by the Elsner String Quartet at the Hubbard Recital Hall in New York, and by the Cuarteto Ibérico in Madrid.
• Tres piezas para instrumento y piano (Three Pieces for Instrument and Piano, 1997) Premiered in Slovenia.
• Ecstasy sensorial (1997) Winner II Premio de Composición Musical Joaquín Turina 1998. Premiered by the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla conducted by Klause Weise at the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville. Symphony Orchestra
• La mandrágora (1998) Premiered by Eva Mesalles on the Spanish television programme “La Mandrágora”. Unaccompanied Viola
• Ecstasy sensorial 2 (2000) Winner I Premio de Composición Musical Joaquín Turina 2001 Premiered by the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla conducted by Juan Luis Pérez at the Teatro de la Maestranza de Sevilla. Symphony Orchestra
• Teoría para clarinete en si b (Theory for Clarinet in B flat, 2001) Premiered by Joan Pere Gil at the Teatro Comarcal in Solsona B flat Clarinet
• Universo (Universe, 2001) Symphony Orchestra
• Estudios para piano (Piano Studies, 2002) Winner of “Manuel Valcárcel Prize”, International Competition for Piano Composition, Marcelino Botín Foundation. Premiered by Lucille Chung at the International Festival of Santander Unaccompanied Piano
• Af_k (2003) Flute, Harp, Oboe, Percussion, Horn, Harpsichord, Trombone, Piano and 4 Violas
• AO (2005) Symphony Orchestra
• String Quartet No. 4 “the life” (2005) Commissioned by the International Festival of Santander Premiered by the Parissi Quartet in San Vicente de la Barquera
• Concerto for piano trio and orchestra “la bellezza” (Concert for Piano Trio and Orchestra “la bellezza”)
• Agitazzione Apassionata (2005) Estrenada en el Festival de Música de Málaga en Enero de 2007 por Manuel Guillén
• La desintegración del ser (2006) Encargo del Ministerio de Cultura. CDMC Estrenada por la Camerata de Madrid en Alicante

“[…] Israel David Martínez is a strong, original and free-thinking talent, from the onset of his career moved by the determination of his calling … one has to see in Israel David Martínez, a singular voice for the future of music, thanks to his persuasive ideas and his skilled, coherent style that employs precise syntax and prosody. The composer embraces a wide range of historic-artistic predecessors spanning from Bach to Ligeti, if we are able to recognize their individual personalities in his pentagrams…. His music has an expressionistic tone about it, though I prefer to describe it as high level, expressive structuralism”. Enrique Franco, El Pais, 27th of August, 2004.

Israel David Martínez was born in Barcelona in 1969. He began his musical training at the Liceu at the age of 16 combined, from the very start, with composition and instrumentation studies with Josep Soler. After just one course of musical language, and in just twenty days, he wrote his first work, Cuarteto de Cuerda Nº 1 (String Quartet no. 1), this composition was soon recorded in Paris by the Cuarteto Enesco and won the Spanish National Prize for best album of the year. At this point the Ministerio de Cultura awarded him a scholarship to further his composition studies with Cristobal Halffter, Tomás Marco and José Ramón Encinar.

The Badalona Conservatory conferred him the Honor Award for Composition and Instrumentation and he obtained his Higher Certificate in Harmony, Counterpoint, Fugue, Composition and Instrumentation. He finished his studies with an Orchestra Conducting course with Salvador Mas at the Higher Conservatory of Music in Barcelona, and following that he was awarded a scholarship by the Spanish Association of Interpreters and Performers to study at the Berkley School of Music in Boston.

He began to be a sought after composer, praised for his brilliant works, and frequently invited to premiere his new works at major venues in Spain. During an encounter with Yizhak Sadaï (composition professor at the University of Tel- Aviv), the eminent professor confessed that Israel David Martínez was the first man he had ever known to be a born composer.

In 1993, at the age of twenty-four, he won the prestigious Queen Sofía Composition Prize with his piece La jeune martyre for baritone and symphony orchestra set to texts by Rainer Maria Rilke. He wrote this piece in just three months and, to date, he is the youngest composer to have ever been awarded the prize.

He has won numerous national and international prizes for composition, on two occasions he was awarded the Joaquín Turina Musical Composition Prize, Salvador Espriu Music Prize, Iberoamericano Composition Competition, etc., which would boost his international career.

One of the most recent Composition prizes to be awarded him, for his Estudios para piano (Piano Studies), was the Manuél Valcarcel Prize, organized and created by the Marcelino Botín Foundation, and probably the world’s most important prize for new piano works. This award is a vital achievement in his career, as it has set up a strong bond of union to the city of Santander, with its International Festival, and with Luciano González Sarmineto, a person who will be at the composer’s side at all times.

He has given lectures at the Universidad Autónoma in Madrid, at the Miró Foundation in Barcelona, at the Casa de América in Madrid and at the Manhattan School of Music in New York, and he has been given numerous commissions, for example by the Centre for the Promotion of Contemporary Music at the Juan March Foundation, by the International Music Festival of Santander, by Yamaha, etc.

He was selected by the Spanish Embassy in New York and by Dr. David Noon, to represent Spanish Contemporary Music at the International Music Festival of New York, and to mark the occasion his Cuarteto de Cuerda Nº 3 (String Quartet No. 3) was performed for the first time, to the acclamation of public and critics alike.

A number of recordings of his works are available on CD released by Spanish National Radio, as well as by other recording companies.

His compositions have been performed in Spain, U.S.A., Slovenia, Germany, France and Italy, and premiered by the Cuarteto Enesco of Paris, The Elsner String Quartet, Cuarteto Parissi, Cuarteto Arcana, Música XXI, Trio Mompou, Trio Barcino, Trio Collage, Soloists of Ibercamera, Grupo Manon, Logos Ensemble, Spanish Radio Television Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Barcelona y Nacional de Cataluña, Real Orquesta Sinfónica of Seville, etc.

The Marcelino Botín Foundation sponsors the candidacy of Israel David Martínez for the world’s most prestigious music prize, the Grawemeyer Award, Louisville, Kentucky, considered the Nobel Prize of Music.

In his Estudios para piano (Piano Studies) and the Cuarteto de Cuerda Nº 4 (String Quartet No. 4), Israel David Martínez has begun to create a new language that he has called cosmodality. This new sonorous paradise combined with total creative freedom will allow him to explore more deeply the feelings, desires, weaknesses, fears, phobias and joys of human beings.

He is professor of Composition in the Conservatory of Liceu (Barcelona) and Illes Balears (Mallorca)

• E-mail: martinezisraeldavidgmail.com