Raquel García-Tomás is a composer specializing in interdisciplinary creation who completed her Doctorate at the Royal College of Music. Highlights of her career include collaborations with the English National Ballet, the Royal Academy of Arts and the Dresdner Musikfestspiele.
She received the National Award of Music 2020 (Spain) “for the interdisciplinary and innovative character of her personal musical language”. Raquel was awarded El Ojo Crítico Música Clásica 2017 granted by RTVE (Spanish Radio and Television Corporation) “for the originality of her artistic approaches and the use and combination of her musical language with new technologies and video creation”.
Raquel’s music has been premiered all around Spain in venues such as the Palau de la Música Catalana, L’Auditori de Barcelona, Teatre Lliure, Zaragoza’s Concert Hall, Teatros del Canal, Teatro Español, el Teatro de la Zarzuela and Auditorio 400 at the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid. Her works have also been performed in Berlin, Dresden, Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, Huddersfield, Amsterdam, Luxemburg, Budapest, Vienna, Orléans, Lyon, Basel, Lausanne, Oporto, Edinburgh, Nagoya, Cairo, Buenos Aires, Rosario and especially in London (St. Martin in the Fields, Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall, the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal British Society of Sculptors, the Royal Academy of Arts and The Place). Raquel has received commissions and worked with the London Sinfonietta, the Oslo Sinfonietta, the Phace Ensemble, the Orquestra de Cadaqués Contemporary Ensemble, the National Youth Orchestra of Spain, the Madrid Symphony Orchestra, the Càmera Musicae Orchestra, the SIGMA Project, Experimental Funktion, CrossingLines Ensemble, Ensemble Sonido Extremo, Cosmos Quartet, Barcelona Clarinet Players, Barcelona Reed Quintet, BCN216 and PluralEnsemble among others.
Within the framework of operatic creation, she has taken part in DIDO Reloaded (2013), produced by Òpera de Butxaca i Nova Creació Barcelona and, thanks to the opera Go, ÆNEAS, go!, has been awarded the Neuköllner Oper’s Berliner Opernpreis’14. In 2015, she premiered her chamber opera disPLACE – Història d’una casa (text by H. Tornero and stage direction by P. Pawlik), at the MusikTheaterTage Wien Festival, with further performances in Teatros del Canal within the season 2016/17 of the Teatro Real in Madrid. In 2018, she premiered the monodrama Balena Blava (text by V. Szpunberg) for one actress, large orchestra, choir and electronics at the National Theatre of Catalonia. In 2019, she premiered the opera buffa Je Suis Narcissiste (libretto by H. Tornero and stage direction by M. Pazos), within the seasons of the Teatro Real de Madrid, Teatro Español, and the Teatre Lliure de Barcelona. The International Opera Awards nominated this opera for Best World Premiere.
Together with Irène Gayraud and Marta Pazos, Raquel is creating her new opera, Alexina B. (granted with the Beca Leonardo of the BBVA Foundation), which will be premiered in the 2022/23 season of the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
source: https://www.raquelgarciatomas.com/about
Member of the Board of Judges – Concorso 2 Agosto, 2023 Edition
Member of the Board of Judges – Concorso 2 Agosto, 2024 Edition