A musician of exceptional sensitivity and an exquisite language of structural forms almost impossible to materialize, Barcelona-based composer José Río-Pareja is currently one of the most solid figures on the Spanish scene.

The Mixtur festival and Hémisphère son have joined forces to commission an original work by José Río-Pareja in 2021.

Born in Barcelona in 1973, José Río-Pareka graduated in composition, choral conducting and orchestral conducting from the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Barcelona. From 2002 to 2007, he lived in the United States, where he obtained his doctorate in composition at Stanford University under the tutelage of Brian Ferneyhough. Since his return, he has taught composition at the Escuela Superior de Música de Catalunya (ESMUC).

He has received numerous awards, such as the Second Prize of the Henri Dutilleux Competition 2004 in France, the INAEM Prize in 2008 (National Institute of Performing Arts and Music) or the MasMenos Prize 2016 in Argentina.

His works have been commissioned and performed by renowned ensembles and soloists such as the Spanish National Orchestra, Quaturo Arditti, Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Contrechamps, Trio Arbós, Trio Kandinsky, Ann Unju Yi, Robert Huw Morgan, Lluïsa Espigolé... and the Kebyart ensemble , a Catalan saxophone quartet, for which he composed "Parhelia" in 2018, as part of the Emergents Festival.

Also recent are two works in her repertoire: Los incensarios, commissioned by the National Orchestra and Choir of Spain, premiered under the direction of the young German conductor David Afkham at the National Auditorium in Madrid in 2018, and Tão longe de mim - four songs on poems by Fernando Pessoa, for mezzo-soprano and ensemble, commissioned by the National Centre for Musical Diffusion (CNDM) and premiered jointly in Portugal and Spain by the Lisbon Contemporary Music Group in the 2019/2020 season.

The Verso label and the BBVA Foundation have published a monographic CD, The river without a basea selection of his chamber works performed by the clarinettist Carlos Gálvez Taroncher and the Trío Arbós.

In October 2022, he presents his chamber opera Entre los árboles, with libretto by one of Spain's great playwrights Juan Mayorga, directed by Nao Albet at Barcelona's Grand Teatre Liceu.