Meet the ComposHer: Ana Paola Santillán Alcocer

Ana Paola Santillán Alcocer (b. 1972) is a Mexican composer, as written for all genres of contemporary music from orchestral to chamber, chorus, solo instruments, electronic, video and installation.

She enjoys using Multimedia and Visual Arts elements in her work, exploring abstract and narrative components, combining music with video. Currently, Ana Paola is pursuing a doctoral degree at Schulich School of Music, at McGill University (Montreal).

Some of her honors include first prize at the interdisciplinary competition “Spectacle des architectes et compositeurs” 2008 (Fontainebleau, France); winner of the Paul Cooper Prize in Composition 2008 (Rice University); 2nd prize in the Josef Dorfman Memorial International Composition Prize 2007 (Michelstadt, Germany); she earned the 2010 National Commission for Youth Orchestras (Mexico, Conaculta); the UNESCO-Aschberg Bursaries for Artists Programme; resident composer at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and works at several of the annual Foro Internacional de Musica Nueva Manuel Enriquez in Mexico City.

Learn more about her and her awesome work in the Meet the ComposHer of this week!

I realized I wanted to be a composer at age 15, before that I wanted to be a vet because I love animals.

I think I started liking rock music first and then while I was studying composition, I started to be more open to listen to new and interesting things. I think my first influencer was Stravinsky and this evolved into George Crumb, Thomas Adès, Salvatore Sciarrino, Kaija Saariaho.

My biggest challenge was to get funding and money to make a living while I was a student.

I like making a detailed plan in one single page where I get to describe all the music parameters in a piece, including but not limited to narrative, form, structure, sound world, harmony, instrumentation, orchestration, textures. register, dynamics, planes of music, etc…

Sommeil Paradoxal for 18 instruments (2017)

Kaija Saariaho: Nymphéa Reflection (2001)

I would say that I should not be worrying much about things that do not have a solution and I would give myself a pat in the back and tell myself I did the right decision by choosing the path of becoming a music composer. Thanks to that decision, life has been very challenging, never boring, strategic, with few painful moments that made me a craftier person, but most of all, an extremely rewarding one.