Guest artists Jose Manuel Alvarez Losada and Pedro Mateo to present recital March 20

NATCHITOCHES - Pianist Jose Manuel Alvarez Losada and guitarist Pedro Mateo will present a recital at Northwestern State University on Wednesday, March 20 at 7:30 p.m. in Magale Recital Hall. Admission is free and open to the public. A livestream will be available at nsula.edu/capa/capalivestream.

As a versatile violinist, Losada regularly performs as a soloist, chamber musician or concertmaster and has a wide repertoire, which includes works from the Baroque period to the present day, with special dedication to the music of Spanish composers.

After being awarded in various competitions, such as the international "Joaquín Rodrigo" (Madrid, 2004) or the "Primer Palau" (Barcelona, 2006), he started an intensively performing in auditoriums in Europe, the United States, and Asia.

As a soloist Losada has performed with various orchestras, such as the Spanish Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, the "Real Filharmonía de Galicia" Orchestra, the Balearic Symphony Orchestra, the Mallorca Chamber Orchestra or the Acadèmia 1830 Orchestra. In addition, he gives the premiere of the revised version of "Poemario for violin and string orchestra", by Antón García Abril, with close collaboration with the composer. Passionate of the solo violin repertoire, he usually performs recitals where he confronts the classical repertoire for this instrument with works by contemporary composers, with the intention of spreading the music of our time.

Chamber music was central to Losada since the beginning of his career. He was a founding member of the "Música en Compostela" String Quartet, specialized in Spanish music performing. This quartet led the premieres of several contemporary composers, as well as an important work of recovery and dissemination of the Spanish musical heritage. Currently he has a stable duo with Mateo, with whom he has made the first worldwide recording of the sonatas for violin and guitar by the Austrian composer Ferdinand Rebay, with the "Eudora Records" label.

A native of Ávila, Spain, Mateo studied guitar at the conservatories of Madrid, Salamanca, Weimar and Cologne. He did postgraduate studies in the Konzertexam modality at the prestigious Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf and at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg, Austria.

Mateo won first prizes in the following competitions: the Boston Guitar Fest (2009), the 66th Spanish Jeunesses Musicales, the VII International "Ciudad de Coria" Guitar Competition, V International "Ciudad de Torrent" Guitar Competition, II International "José Tomás-Villa de Petrer" Guitar Competition, XII Villareal "Francesc Tarrega" Guitar Competition, III "Miami´s International Competition" in the USA and VI "Anna Amalia Wettbewerb für junge Gitarristen" in Weimar (Germany).

He has played in venues such as the Jordan Hall in Boston, the Berlin Philharmonie, the National Auditorium of Cuba, the University of Jerusalem, the National Music Auditorium in Madrid, the Spanish Embassies of Slovenia, Croatia and Vietnam or the Weimarer Gitarre -Verein.

Mateo has performed as a soloist with orchestras such as the ORTVE, the Castilla y León Symphony Orchestra or the Balearic Islands Orchestra, under the direction of conductors such as Adrian Leaper, Alejandro Posadas or Leo Brouwer. He has made recordings for TVE, RNE, Slovenia Classical Radio and Deutschland Radio Berlin (Germany) and has recorded for the Eudora and NAXOS record labels.