Carlos Hidalgo

He was born in 1973 in Pasto, Colombia. He studied flute at the „Antonio Maria Valencia“ Conservatory in Cali, Colombia. In 2006 he was granted a scholarship from the Heinrich Boell Fundation to pursue his studies in Composition at the University of Music and Theatre „Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy“ in Leipzig, Germany, where he studied until 2011 under the supervision of Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf. In 2012 he moved to Switzerland to pursue a master’s degree in electroacoustic composition at the Zurich University of the Arts, under the supervision of Germán Toro Pérez.

From 2013 to 2014 he received a scholarship from the canton of Schwyz. Since 2006 he took part in various masterclasses in Graz (Impuls), Darmstadt (Ferienkurse für Neue Musik) and Vienna, with Beat Furrer, Brian Ferneyhough, Georg Aperghis, Brice Pauset, Rebecca Saunders and Vladimir Tarnopolsky. He also attended professional training courses at the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics and Music (IRCAM) in Paris. In 2015 he took part in the Matrix Academy thanks to a scholarship from SWR in Freiburg, Germany.

From 2014 to 2016 he worked on a research project in the area of performance practice of electroacoustic music led by the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology (ICST) in Zurich. In 2017 he got his master’s degree in Electroacoustic composition at the Zurich University of the Arts. He is the co-founder of the Ensemble Polywerk in Zurich.

He has obtained several scholarships, including Ibermusicas and the Stadt Zürich, through which he lived in Mexico (2017) and Berlin (2019-2020). In 2020 he got a scholarship from Akademie der Künste in Berlin. His music has been played in different Festivals in Europe, the USA, and Latin America. Since 2014 he works at the SNF Research Project Performance Practice of Electronic Music at the Institut for Computer Music and Sound Technology (ICST) in Zurich. He lives in Zurich.

From 2018 to 2022 he worked as a research assistant for the research project «Performing Live Electronic Music» funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) at the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology (ICST) at the Zurich University of the Arts. 2023 to 2024 One-year residency fellowship at the Birlihaus in Wald (Canton Appenzell, Switzerland) of the René and Renia Schlesinger Foundation.

His music has been performed at several festivals for contemporary and electroacoustic music in Europe, Latin America and the USA. He lives in Zurich.