Geoffrey Alvarez is a British/Nicaraguan composer and conductor.

He chairs the annual international composition competition run by
The Alvarez Chamber Orchestra.

He studied composition privately with Giles Swayne

Giles Swayne

Giles Oliver Cairnes Swayne is a British composer.- Biography :Swayne is a cousin of Elizabeth Maconchy. He spent much of his childhood in Liverpool, and began composing at a young age...

, then with Paul Patterson

Paul Patterson

Paul Patterson is a British composer and Manson Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music.Patterson studied trombone and composition at the Royal Academy of Music. He returned there to become Head of Composition and Contemporary Music until 1997, when he became Manson Professor of...

 at the Royal Academy of Music as a Leverhulme scholar, and later at the University of York with David Blake

David Blake (composer)

David Blake is a British composer born in London in 1936. Following National Service Blake learnt Mandarin Chinese and spent one year in Hong Kong. He went on to read music at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where his teachers were Patrick Hadley, Peter Tranchell and Raymond Leppard...

 and Richard Orton, where he obtained a D.Phil.

He is also a writer on music and inventor of Gravesian Analysis.

Some of his papers are published in Gravesiana: The Journal of the Robert Graves Society, whilst he has contributed several articles for Tempo on the work of composers such as Michael Finnissy and Alexander Goehr Arianna (Goehr)

Arianna (Goehr)

Arianna is an opera in eight scenes by the British composer Alexander Goehr, premiered at the Royal Opera House, London, in 1995. It is set to the libretto , by Ottavio Rinuccini, used by Claudio Monteverdi in his 1608 opera, L'Arianna. The opera is Goehr's op...

. Whilst his own work (his setting of Psalm XXIII in Hebrew) was reviewed in the same publication by Mark R. Taylor.

His compositions range from the wind quintet The Travelling Musicians, performed by the Harlequin Wind Quintet in the Purcell Room in 2001 to seven symphonies and numerous operas including a collaboration with poetess Ruth Fainlight

Ruth Fainlight

Ruth Fainlight , is a poet, short story writer, translator and librettist.-Life and career:Fainlight was born in New York, but has mainly lived in England since she was fifteen, having also spent some years living in France and Spain. She studied for two years at the Birmingham and Brighton...

 commissioned by the Garden Venture of the Royal Opera House: The European Story.

In November 2006, Geoffrey Alvarez returned from Poland as a prize winning finalist and soloist with the Arthur Rubenstein Łódź Philharmonic Orchestra in the Final of the Tansman 6th International Competition of Musical Personalities, Composers Competition, Łódź 2006.

Music

• Montage for Clarinet, Horn & Orchestra (1979) 14'

Michael Collins, clarinet, Peter Kronheimer, horn, Alvarez Chamber Orchestra,
St Giles, Cripplegate 1979

• TheTell-Tale Heart (Opera) (1981-3) 40'

First staged performance: Royal Academy of Music Opera Department 1984

• Oboe Concerto (1984–85) 25 '

Nicholas Daniel, Alvarez Chamber Orchestra,
St. John's Smith Square

• Three Madrigals for Chamber Choir (1986-8) 15'

First Madrigal, BBC. Singers, Maide Vale Studios (1993)

• Lament in Memoriam Anderson (1987) 17'

University of York Chamber Orchestra, Roger Montgomery, 1987

Winner of the University of York Chamber Orchestra Commission.

• Songs My Parrot Taught Me (1992) 40'

Polyphiloi, Conducted by Malcolm Singer, Purcell Room September 1993

• Bastien and Bastienne Arias - Mozart, Recitatives - Geoffrey Alvarez (1993) 70'

(1) English Country Opera Peckover House (1993)

(2) Northlands Festival, Ackergill Tower (1994)

(3) Chelse Arts Club

• The Laughing Lotus for Woodwind Quintet (1997) 10'

(1) The Oxford University Contemporary Music Society, February 15, 1998

(2) The Oxford University Contemporary Music Ensemble,
Oxford Festival of Contemporary Music, May 15, 1998

• The Travelling Musicians a Pantomime for Wind Quintet (1999–2000) 25'
• Psalm XXIII for soprano and piano (2000) 21'

Lisa Nolan, soprano and Christine Grieg, piano
St. Cyprian's Church, NW1 October 7, 2000

• My Last Muse for bass and orchestra (2000) 29'

A setting of five poems by Robert Graves in consultation with Julia Simonne, Graves’ last Muse.
Patrick Ardagh: Baritone, Alvarez Chamber Orchestra, Julia Simonne: reciter, Timothy Walker: guitar

St. John's Smith Square, 2008

• Concertino: for piano and chamber orchestra (2001) 18'

For Luciano Berio

• El Duende: for tenor and piano (2002) 20'

A setting of six poems by Federico García Lorca.

• Tríptico Nicaragüense: for tenor and piano (2002)

A setting of three poems by Ruben Darío

• Teares or Lamentations: Six Sundry Sights: for 10 course lute
• Magnificat: for SATB chorus (2004) 6'

first public performance The Waltham Singers
to be conducted by Andrew Fardell 2010

• The Old Jewish Cemetery in Lodz (2008) 8'

for string orchestra
Alvarez Chamber Orchestra, Polish Embassy in London, 2008

• Fantasia on Tansman's Last Theme: Alla Polacca (2008) 10'

Alvarez Chamber Orchestra, St. John's Smith Square, 2008

• Missa Regina Elissa: for chorus, timpani, organ and strings (2009) 15'

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Work in Progress:

• La profecía última del rey: Opera in five acts (2003)

Complete Cataloguehttp://freespace.virgin.net/geoffrey.alvarez/mycatalogue.htm

Publishers

Most of his works are published by Campion Press Music Publishers

His Tears or Lamentations: Six Sundry Sighs for 10-course lute are available from Lute Society Publications.

Awards and honours

• Eric Coates Composition Prize, Royal Academy of Music, 1979
• Josiah Parker Composition Prize, Royal Academy of Music, 1980
• Royal Overseas League 'Bernard Shore' Composition Award 1990.
• Recommended work: I International Uuno Klami Composition Competition 2003-2004
• Fourth Prize in The Tansman 6th International Competition of Musical Personalities, Composers Competition, Łódź 2006