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Reinaldo Moya
A 2026 Guggenheim Fellow and composer whose music explores identity, memory, and migration. From his early training in Venezuela's El Sistema to performances at Carnegie Hall, Severance Hall, and the Kennedy Center, his work bridges classical tradition with the rhythms and complexity of modern Latin America.
Reinaldo Moya's music moves between the vernacular rhythms of Latin America and the formal structures of classical music, treating both as a living language. This mix is not neutral: the music is forever searching for the right language for each occasion, reaching from the sublime to the mundane, the beautiful to the ugly. Underneath it all there is something quieter: a persistent grief, and a longing for a Venezuela that exists now only in memory.
“But throughout this touching, introspective piece there is evidence of a profound understanding of grief — it’s unfair weight and tendency to barge in uninvited. In Moya’s music, tangents become topics, themes turn into memories and come rushing back. The opening of the second movement finds a Morton Feldman-esque stillness suddenly disrupted by a busy 3-on-1 discussion (it kind of felt like I do at funerals). Stute’s singing cello in the fourth movement (“A Canela y Clavo”) leads us to a passage of chords that don’t feel complete, as if the music is missing something and hasn’t yet filled the space. This final act even contains the rage that comes from bearing the irregular object of grief — a furrowed brow in the strings, a rattle in the chest of the piano.”
— from review of I Will Dance, and Dance with You: The Washington Post (March 3, 2025)
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