Faculty

Juan Pablo Contreras is a Latin GRAMMY®-nominated composer who combines Western classical and Mexican folk music in a single soundscape. His works have been performed by 30 major orchestras in the United States, Mexico, Slovakia, Colombia, Argentina, and Venezuela. Contreras is celebrated as the first Mexican composer to sign a record deal with Universal Music, serve as Sound Investment Composer with Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and win the BMI William Schuman Prize. 

Contreras has received commissions from the Las Vegas Philharmonic, California Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic, Tucson Symphony, Fresno Philharmonic, Richmond Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and Jalisco Philharmonic Orchestra. He has won awards including New Music USA’s Amplifying Voices Prize, the Presser Music Award, the Jalisco Orchestral Composition Prize, the Brian Israel Prize, the Pi Kappa Lambda Award, the Arturo Márquez Composition Contest, the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, the Dutch Harp Composition Contest, the Nicolas Flagello Award, and the Young Artist Fellowship of Mexico’s National Fund for Culture and the Arts. 

Juan Pablo Contreras has also served as Composer-in-Residence with Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the soundON Festival of Modern Music in San Diego, the Cactus Pear Music Festival in San Antonio, and at the Turtle Bay Music School and Concerts on the Slope in New York. His music has been recorded on Universal Music Mexico, Albany Records, Epsa Music, and Urtext Digital Classics.

Career Highlights:

Universal Music Mexico, Recording Artist (2019-present)

Recordings:

Mariachitlán, Universal Music Mexico, Jalisco Philharmonic Orchestra, 2019
Furia y Silencio, Urtext Digital Classics, Onix Ensamble, 2016
Silencio en Juárez, Albany Records, Claremont Avenue Chamber Orchestra, 2015
Latino, Epsa Music, Cordoba Symphony Orchestra, 2014
Opus I, Formalist Quartet, CalArts Orchestra, 2010